


A Glint of Light on Broken Glass

by saltylikecrait



Series: Brightest Stars Quartet [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Anxiety, Canon Rewrite, Dark Side Rey, Established Relationship, F/M, False Memories, Family, Force Visions, Force-Sensitive Finn, Injury, Lightsaber Battles, Lightsabers, Mind Rape, Minor Character Death, Psychological Trauma, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-08-17 04:26:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16509362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltylikecrait/pseuds/saltylikecrait
Summary: Sequel toThe Brightest Stars are Born in Darkness.After escaping the First Order with Poe Dameron, Finn and Rey set a course for the Resistance with some detours on the way. As Rey reunites with her family, she and Finn begin to question where they should go from there.





	1. Chapter 1

Even if Rey had never actually had grown up here, that didn’t change the fact that Jakku was a dusty hellpit of a junkyard.

Sand dunes stretched as far as the eyes could see until it vanished into the horizon against a cloudless blue sky. The landscape even seemed to swallow up Jakku’s sad excuse of a civilization, Niima Outpost, a collection of junk and anything that could be used to cobble together a marketplace. Finn noted bits of old and rusted metal paneling used to make patchwork walls for the more permanent structures. 

The faces in the marketplace looked almost as weathered and rusted as the structures they gathered around. It was obvious that the only reason anyone gathered here was because this was the only place where they could find all the necessities needed to survive: food, water, supplies for shelter, tools and items for trade. It looked like there might have been a small building that housed sonic refreshers, water being too precious to use for something like bathing.

Finn ducked back into the transport and began to remove the armor panels from his clothes. It was too hot to wear them and they would make him stick out too much. 

And well, he _did_ just defect from the ranks, he kept reminding himself. It wasn’t like he needed the armor anymore.

Quickly moving around to help him, Rey began to unfasten the chest plate where it buckled and snapped together under his arms while she continued to talk to Poe about their hastily made plan. It reminded Finn of their nights alone when she would help him out of the trickier bits of armor. Her touch was gentle but purposeful. She knew this armor as intimately as she knew her own garb.

“Okay,” started Finn. “Run this by me.”

“Beebee-ate is still here,” replied Poe. “And he has the map to Luke Skywalker, meaning that a lot of people are probably looking for him now.”

“So _we’re,”_ Rey gestured to herself and to Finn, “going into Niima to look for him.”

Finn frowned. “And how exactly are we going to find a droid in all of this?” he asked. There was so much junk around that he couldn’t tell between what was a complete droid and what was a scrap from the back of a speeder.

With a wink aimed at him, Rey said, “I can be good at finding things when I want to.” Then, she moved over to one of the seats against the wall of the transport and picked up a very new technical component. “And we can trade this, if we have to.”

Looking impressed, Poe whistled lowly. “You actually thought to bring that?”

“It crossed my mind as I was doing a pre-flight check. I knew that Beebee-ate was on Jakku and I recalled how things work here. Credits aren’t useful around here.”

“Oh?” Poe raised an eyebrow in curiosity. “So you’ve been here before?”

A slight slump of her shoulders told Finn that Rey felt a little off-center about this whole thing. He didn’t have the slightest idea of how it would feel to live for years believing that you had lived one life only to find out that none of that was true. It must be a terribly confusing and heart-wrenching feeling. Since that night when she was sick and regained some idea of what were her real memories, Rey had not brought up much more about her childhood. He wondered if Rey had regained many other memories since. To be honest, he hadn't brought it up much with her, figuring that she would either talk about it on her own when she was ready. Now, it made him question her current mental state.

And then he had a thought that spiked his already-high anxiety: what if Rey could not prove to Leia Organa that she was her niece?

Replying, Rey said a quick and quiet, “No,” before she retrieved her helmet and the component. She looked at the helmet sadly and sighed. 

Her response confused Poe, but he didn’t ask her any further questions. “You’ll need to be quick,” he pointed out. “First Order probably knows we’re gone by now.” Then he made a quick glance at Finn before he shrugged out of his leather flight jacket and handed it to him.

“What’s this for?” asked Finn.

“Wear it,” Poe said. “It’ll help you blend in a little more. And Beebee will recognize it.”

Actually, that wasn’t a bad thought. Rey was going to be walking around as a Knight of Ren and neither of them had ever met BB-8. How would the droid know to trust them based only on their word that Poe was with them on the transport? Poe would go with them if he could, but he was in no shape to, and walking around with blood-stained clothes and gashes on his face would draw too much attention. 

“Good idea.” Finn nodded as he slipped the jacket on. He was not familiar with the material or the feeling of leather touching his skin as he brushed against it. This was the first time he ever worn civilian clothing and something that wasn’t issued _en masse_ by the First Order. Even as a young cadet, he had to wear the same grayish training suits as everyone else with the red insignia of the First Order proudly displayed. It wasn’t his jacket, but it was the first time that he got to wear something that no one else around him was.

This was the first time he ever looked like an individual.

“Okay,” said Finn as he looked to Rey. “Let’s do this.”

They exited the transport and looked around once more before deciding that the outpost looked safe enough. Almost immediately, Finn regretted wearing a leather jacket and decided to remove it until they got into the outpost proper. It was intensely hot. 

He hoped after this that he would never have to look at Jakku again. At least he felt safe with the knowledge that Rey probably didn’t want to settle here as it wasn’t her real childhood home. It felt mean to think this since the revelation seemed to have bothered Rey, but he couldn’t help but feel some relief.

Maybe they would find out where Rey grew up and he would offer to travel with her there. Hopefully, it wasn’t another desert planet, though he recalled her describing a forest in her dreams. They would need to find a more permanent settlement once they decided on whatever they were going to do after they met up with the Resistance. For all of their doubts, so far this plan was actually going pretty well.

His eyes darted to and fro as he looked around the marketplace, which was far more bustling than he would have originally thought. Old ship parts were laid out for trade or stacked up in preparation for cleaning and inspection. He even found the sigil of the Empire stamped into the side of an ancient metal sheet. There were some rich supporters of the First Order that would have paid a hefty price for such an artifact, but here on Jakku, the sigil was left forgotten. Finn doubted that the symbol had any value when the population here was more worried about quality and functionality than historical value.

Some of the merchants and scavengers eyed him and Rey wearily; mostly Rey, and probably because of the way she was dressed. He understood that sentiment well. Finn took note of these people, hoping they were not sizing them up to decide if they were worth trying to mug.

By the way she shifted the First Order transport components a little closer to herself under her shawl, Rey had noticed them too.

Niima was certainly a place where the locals were not friendly to strangers. They might not have even been friendly to other locals either. He got the feeling that everyone’s worth was based on what they had to offer here. The offer of friendship and goodwill was not going to feed an empty stomach. Everything about the place screamed that it was a rough world to live in. If you weren’t a day away from starvation or dehydration, you might find yourself desperate for medical help or on the wrong end of a blaster.

Something in particular caught Rey’s attention and she wandered towards a stand. Finn followed behind her and matched her gaze to a merchant inspecting the finds of a young human scavenger before removing the scrap parts and handing over small bags of… it looked like rations. 

“Keep watch,” she whispered to Finn as she moved away from him.

She approached the merchant, a Croulate wearing a strange-looking apron that looked made up of junk like the rest of the outpost. 

“I’m looking for a droid,” she announced.

The Croulate looked her over with wariness. “We’ve got lots of droids. Most of ‘em don’t work. Got some servant droids, a few communication droids-“

“A particular droid,” Rey interrupted him. “Astromech. BB unit. In perfect working condition. I think you know what I’m talking about.”

Finn watched the exchange with interest while he glanced around periodically for signs of trouble. He had never seen a negotiation like this in his life.

The merchant glared at Rey. “And what will you give me?” he asked.

She removed the component from under her shawl, holding it up just enough that the Croulate could see it. “Know what this is?” she asked.

Looking over the bit of metal and wires, the merchant’s eyes widened. “A hyperdrive unit,” he gasped.

She nodded. “The latest. Taken straight off a First Order Star Destroyer.”

The Croulate thought it over, stroking the pale skin along his chin with his fingers. Then he shook his head. “The droid is fully operational, a recent model, customized paint job,” he told her. “And I can tell it’s worth a lot more than what I originally had thought.” He gave her a critical glance.

Finn frowned as he listened in. The merchant was smart, but he was being greedy. Around him, some of the scavengers were making small talk. Many of them were complaining that someone named Unkar Plutt was ripping them off again. Giving them too little of portions for their large pile of finds. Everyone seemed sympathetic to this, but what could they do, they would ask. Plutt was the only person that had real food around here and he dangled that fact over their heads. He had that power over them.

If the First Order had actually gone after guys like this Plutt fellow, Finn might have been more in agreement with their intent.

Rey’s reaction immediately turned sour. This might have been her first attempt at bartering, come to think of it. “This hyperdrive unit is worth far more than that droid!” she insisted.

“I could probably find a better offer,” the Croulate contended. 

A sudden movement of Rey’s arm and the hum of her saber spear startled Finn and everyone witnessing the scene. This was the first time he had ever seen the crimson plasma blade ignite from the top part of the weapon. He thought of the frequent use that Kylo Ren made of his flickering red lightsaber and reminded himself that Rey was nothing like him. In fact, she hated him so much that she would be disgusted with herself to ever be compared to him.

“I have a new deal for you,” Rey hissed as she aimed the blade at the merchant’s fleshy neck. “You give me that droid and I’ll let you keep your life.”

The Croulate’s expression might have matched Finn’s at the moment. Shock. Fear. Surprise. Perhaps even a little nauseous. Now the choice was an obvious one.

“Do we have a deal or not?” she asked.

Looking around to see if anyone was going to help and finding that no one was daring to make a move, the merchant sighed and his resolve weakened almost instantly.

“How can I resist the force of your personality?” The alarm of the merchant’s voice was clear, even as he tried to feign hospitality. “A deal it is.” 

Rey lowered her spear, but she did not shut off the blade. A reminder to the Croulate to behave himself.

He waved his arm over to a group of his thugs that helped with moving the salvage that the scavengers were bringing in. “Please be patient as I have the droid be brought out.”

When the little orange and white droid was finally in sight, he was trying to fight off the scavengers that were kicking at him to make him move to the merchant’s stall. He had a small taser attached to one of his arms held in an attack stance, the taser flickering and ready to be used.

“I warn you that the droid is a little… unruly,” said the Croulate. There might have been some amusement in his voice, but it was overlapped by the fear that Finn could sense in him.

“It’ll be fine,” assured Rey. “Pleasure to do business with you.”

She pointed her saber spear at BB-8 to force him to move away from the stall. Bewildered and afraid, the droid hooted as he followed behind Finn. When they were out of earshot, Rey kneeled down to the droid, who was now making a brave attempt to fight her off.

“Stop it,” she commanded. “I’m here to help! Poe sent me.”

The droid obviously didn’t believe her and began to voice his panic in a series of rapid beeps. Rey sighed and looked to Finn for help.

He approached them. As he moved closer, BB-8 registered his movements and turned his domed head to scan him. When he caught sight of the flight jacket (now back on Finn), he began to talk again.

Finn wasn’t sure if he wished he could speak binary now. Judging by the droid’s behavior, he probably wasn’t very pleasant to listen to. The droid was scared. Actually, this was the first time that Finn had ever seen a droid seem so desperate to stay out of harm’s way. All the droids that the First Order used had very little in the way of personality and didn’t seem to question given orders.

If he wasn’t making that annoying whine of his, Finn would admit that BB-8 was pretty cute.

Rey hummed with approval. “Says that the jacket belongs to his master.” She turned back to the droid. “I told you that Poe sent us. He’s hurt and couldn’t come here himself.”

That made the droid calm down as Rey stood back up to stand next to Finn. “I’m sorry you had to see that.” She nudged her head back towards the stall. “I never wanted to… Well, I did what I had to do.” Brushing her hand against the jacket, she whispered, “I sensed that I scared you.” She looked down at her boots as if too ashamed to look at him.

He frowned. “I can’t say I enjoyed watching that, but I heard the conversation. You did what you had to do,” he repeated her to let her know that he understood.

She nodded, but she still didn’t look up. “We should probably head back,” she said. “I don’t want to be here anymore.” There was pain in her voice.

As they began to make their way back to the transport, BB-8 began a string of excited beeps and looked back in the direction of the marketplace.

“What is it?” Rey’s eyes trailed in the direction the droid was facing and Finn followed her gaze.

Two scavengers that Finn recognized as onlookers to Rey and the merchant’s dealings were speaking to a pair of stormtroopers, their white armor gleamed in the hot sun.

They were staring right back at them.

“Kriff,” he shouted. “We gotta go!” He took off in a run and cursed not having a weapon with him. They agreed to leave the blaster with Poe in case any of the scavengers got any ideas about the transport.

As blaster bolts flew past them, the marketplace erupted into chaos as a small group of stormtroopers began to rip through the outpost. The scavengers were trying to flee with whatever valuables they could take with them.

The TIEs flying overhead weren’t helping matters.

Now that they were away from the marketplace and in the section of flat landscape that was used to land ships, Finn and Rey realized that they were still too far away from the transport and terribly exposed. On the chance that one of the pilots had impeccable aim, they were dead.

Two TIEs screamed overhead and the pair threw themselves to the ground. But instead of aiming for the humans and the droid, the pilots aimed for the transport, which burst into flames and tossed pieces of burnt metal bits in all directions around it.

“Poe!” Finn screamed as he stood up and tried to make his way to the rubble. But Rey reached out and grabbed him by the jacket to stop him.

For a moment, the two of them stared in disbelief at the smoking pile that was once the transport. There was no way Poe got out of that in time…

“Finn! Rey!”

They turned around to see that about fifty feet away was another, older ship – an ancient freighter that looked like it was barely standing up on its own – and that Poe was standing on its ramp waving at them.

Turning to change their destination, Finn and Rey sprinted for the freighter and when they reached it, the three of them ran up the loading dock, waited a few moments for BB-8 to catch up, and hit the switch to raise the ramp and seal the door behind them.

* * *

“What are you doing here?” Rey panted. “Besides being incredibly lucky.”

Dameron grinned. “This old girl’s got quite a history on her, if I’m not mistaken. I wanted to check her out. Good thing I did.” He smiled down at the droid. “Glad to see you, buddy!”

Before he said anything more, Rey sprinted to the cockpit with Dameron stumbling behind her. She tossed her saber spear to the side. While she wanted to rid herself of the mask, she realized that she might need it and the tech that she had installed in it. It had already served a purpose in Niima, it might have another use soon.

There was also something familiar about this ship, but she couldn’t quite place her finger on it and she was too busy to really think at the moment.

Rey started up the console before she began to hit the controls. “Okay, I can do this,” she chanted to herself.

“Need any help?” asked Dameron.

She stopped. “Actually,” she said, moving away from the pilot’s seat, “You’d probably be the best person to fly this thing right now.”

Dameron looked at her questionably. “I thought you were a pilot?” he asked.

“I am, but not as good as you.” Underneath her mask, she grinned. “Watch out though. I plan to give you a run for your credits eventually.”

He laughed as he sat in the pilot’s seat. “Alright.”

Rey shouted down to Finn, “Gunner’s position is down below.”

Finn took that as his cue as began to set himself up in the seat. “Do you think this is actually going to get off the ground?”

“Well buddy,” said Dameron, “if you’d rather take your chances running away from the First Order on foot…”

“Never mind,” Finn answered as he bucked himself into the gunner’s seat. 

Dameron ran through a pre-lift sequence and waited. Rey finally heard the low whine coming from the back of the freighter like they were hoping. Then Dameron thumbed the control that would lift them into the air.

The engines fired to life and soon they were soaring through the blue skies of Jakku. But this was not going to be a pleasure cruise. The pair of TIE fighters that followed them in Niima quickly spotted them and immediately gave chase.

“Stay-" Rey began.

“Stay low!” shouted Finn from the gunner’s position. “It’ll throw off their tracking!”

“Right,” replied Rey. “I’m putting the shields up. If they work.” She began to flip at a few switches on the co-pilot’s side.

She spotted one of the TIEs approaching to their side and knew what Dameron was instinctively going to do. “Beebee-ate,” she shouted. “Hold on!”

Just before she had the shields up, the TIE shot at them, missing, thankfully, but the blast still skimmed the side of the freighter, causing them to lurch forward. A dull _thump_ and a series of alarmed beeping from the corridor told Rey that she warned BB-8 just a little too late.

But above Dameron’s seat, a stray component that was not secured the way it was supposed to be dropped down and hit the pilot square on the head. He fell forward, unconscious, and the freighter began to make a nose dive.

“Kriff!” Rey shouted as she lunged for the controls and steadied the ship. She felt her stomach lurch as she looked over at the pilot.

“What’s happened?” Finn called out.

“Poe’s down! I gotta take the controls.” She moved Dameron to lean him slumped in the pilot’s seat and then stretched her arms to flick on the shields. Once she had that taken care of, she kneeled on the floor of the freighter and took full control as the pilot.

Surprisingly, she found the controls of the freighter modified in a way that was intuitive to use. However, she did pilot it a little clumsily and hit the sides of a few sand dunes in the process of trying to fly low to make her pattern a little hard to follow. She knew that based on the speed of the TIEs, they would zoom past her and have to turn themselves around to get a better shot of her again. It would be those precious couple of seconds that would give Finn a chance to get a clear shot at them.

One of the TIEs entered her line of sight and she let the tech in her mask do its magic. She waited to see if it would pick up on any damage that the TIE had already sustained, but she found that there was nothing that she could exploit yet. It would have been very useful tech if the First Order had let her go out as a pilot. Now she was using their own premium tech against them.

Luckily, the shields on this thing were a lot stronger than she thought and as she looked around the controls, she realized that some of the modifications done on the freighter were illegal by New Republic standards. Whoever owned this old garbage can obviously had been doing some shady business on here. She hoped she’d get to meet the owner. To thank them, for one, and to pick their brains on all the details of the modifications done to this freighter. She was starting to find flying it enjoyable if she forgot about the part with TIEs shooting at them.

“How’s the shooting going, Finn?” She noticed that he seemed to be struggling with the weaponry and briefly worried that she was forcing him to do something that he didn’t want to do. Jakku – the visit he had as a troop – had only been hours ago. He might not be ready to shoot at anybody, if he ever could bring himself to do so again.

He answered her, loud and clear. “Working on it! This thing hasn’t been used in years. It keeps getting jammed. Poe?” 

“Still out.” 

The craft rocked again upon impact of a blast from the TIE. The shields were strong, but Rey knew that they would not hold up forever. She searched the landscape for something to help them. Too bad the tech couldn’t do that for her, she thought.

“We need cover!” Finn shouted up to her.

Then, she spotted a downed Star Destroyer that had been covered with sand over the ages. It was a risky idea, but it was the best she could come up with and she flew upwards to give herself a little more speed.

“We’re about to get some,” she replied.

She hoped the TIE pilots were stupid enough to try to follow her. She wasn’t the most confident about this idea, but she did have something that they did not.

Concentrating on the Force, she found herself giving her trust to it and banked low for the sand dunes, flying past the TIEs. It lined Finn up for the perfect shot, which he took. The blast unsteadied one of the TIEs and it wobbled until it made contact with the upturned stern of the Star Destroyer and burst into a ball of flying debris and flames.

Finn cheered.

“Nice shot!” she yelled to him. Then she made a dive for the open hull of the Star Destroyer.

However, the remaining TIE took its own shot at the freighter, causing it to lurch forward again. When it stabilized again, she heard Finn shouting:

“Guns are stuck in forward position. You gotta lose them!”

With the relentless attack of the TIE fighter hitting them, Rey knew she had to act fast or the shields were going to give. She pulled at the controls to send the freighter into a nose dive towards the star destroyer again, intending to not let up on it this time.

And to her relief, the TIE continued its pursuit.

“Are we really doing this?” came Finn’s voice over the comms.

She began to weave herself through the Star Destroyer, relying on the Force to guide her true. 

It told her what she needed to do next.

“Get ready,” she announced.

“Okay,” said Finn. “I’m ready.” Then he paused. “Wait. For what?”

She didn’t answer as she waited for the perfect timing. If Finn didn’t make this shot, the TIE would eventually be able to wear them down. He needed her to guide him into a perfect shot.

The TIE managed to survive the weaving of the interior of the Star Destroyer and Rey aimed the freighter to shoot skywards once she returned to the light outside. Then, she cut the power to the freighter and eased it into a swing so she could turn it around with ease.

As they made the plunge to the sand dunes below, she waited and relied on Finn’s own instinct to take over. He was one of the best cadets of his age. She had faith in him.

The TIE was in view and it had sustained some damage from the detour in the Star Destroyer. It wouldn’t take much for Finn to shoot it down.

The green streaks of the TIEs attack missed them on the way down she watched as suddenly the freighter’s own weapon strike made contact with their enemy and brought it down. 

Rey then turned the power back on and flew the craft back up towards the sky, not letting go of the controls until they left atmo and the comforting darkness of space surrounded them. 

Tossing her mask off and not caring where it went, she turned autopilot on and then glanced at Dameron, who had still not woken up. With a frown, she left the cockpit and began to look around for a better place to move him to.

BB-8 rolled up to her and beeped out some concern. 

“You okay?” she asked the droid, who responded in a positive before asking his own question. “Poe’s unconscious, but I think he’ll be okay.”

Finn’s rushed footsteps met her in the lounge. He kissed her soundly on the lips.

“That was some piloting!” He grinned.

“Thanks. That was some shooting,” she replied back.

“You about gave me a heart attack for that last TIE,” he admitted, “but at least in my panic I could still twitch my fingers to shoot.”

She grimaced. “Sorry, Finn. I didn’t-"

“Rey,” he laughed. “I’m joking. I’m fine.”

A sigh of relief passed her lips. “Sorry,” she repeated. “I wasn’t sure if you… were ready yet. I was worried.”

His fingers gently skimmed down her shoulders to one of her hands, which he held in his. “I know.” He paused. “This time was a little different from the other times,” he admitted. “They were trying to shoot us down.”

“And that’s okay with you?” It wasn’t that she didn’t believe him, Rey just worried that Finn would force himself to do something he didn’t want to and try to hide it from her.

“We’re alive.”

And that reminded her:

“Can you help me with Poe? He’s still not up yet.”

Hearing that, Finn snap back into instant seriousness. They hurried back over to the cockpit to find that Dameron still had not woken up and that BB-8 was standing over him, trying to rouse him. It was a very touching scene to see a droid so concerned for a human. Almost reminded her of…

The droid beeped at her. 

“He’s okay, Beebee-ate,” she promised. “Something hit his head.” She searched around for the piece of stray scrap parts that caused all this. 

She saw Finn moved to try to lift Dameron, then he stopped as he noticed a fresh gash across his forehead, probably from where the part hit him.

“Rey,” he said. “Help me search this place to find a medkit.”

They spent the next couple of minutes shuffling around empty crates and searching drawers and supply closets for what they were looking for. Rey wouldn’t believe that whoever modified this freighter wouldn’t have even a basic medkit, especially not after seeing some small holes in the walls where some stray blaster bolts had obviously hit. 

But that was not really on her mind either. She thought back to their short visit on Jakku and how some aspects of it _did_ seem oddly familiar to her. At this point, she believed that Jakku had just been an idea planted into her mind with shallow details that just scraped the surface of reality. She knew Unkar Plutt’s name and recognized the accent, she understood how survival worked on the world, she also recalled a downed AT-AT that her false memories made to be her home. 

But there was one specific memory that she was recalling with very specific details that stood out from her other recollections of the world. It was a memory coming from herself as a very small child, watching a sun-worn woman scrub away at a piece of scrap metal that she had collected. Rey had wondered exactly how long the woman had been on Jakku and how she came to be there. 

So Rey deducted a couple of things:

For one, she _had_ visited Jakku in her childhood, but did not stay long.

During that visit she had gathered some basic information of life on that world.

And that meant that whoever was responsible with messing with her mind either played on these real memories to use as a basis for the fake ones or that person also had some familiarity with that world. Maybe a bit of both were the responsible factors for her false memories. Like weaving a story, knowing your environment helped make a more convincing fictional one.

This left her with more questions and more of a sense of being lost than before.

“Found it!” Finn announced as he held up a white container. He made his way back to the cockpit and Rey followed behind him. 

As Finn began to clean the blood from Dameron’s head, he glanced briefly at Rey before asking, “Something wrong?”

She sighed. “Nothing,” she replied. “Just thinking.”

“Thinking, huh?” He began to apply disinfectants to the cuts and scrapes. “Of what?”

A part of her wanted to revert back to her old self, one that didn’t like to reveal too much to anyone out of general distrust and would have held all thought like this to herself. Actually, the emotional impact was taking its toll on her, making her feel exhausted and longing to find a bed, or at least a warm blanket, to curl up in and try to forget everything. But this was Finn, who would never hurt her nor would he ever belittle her for her problems. If anyone should know about this, it should be him. He might be able to help her talk herself through the memories and how she was feeling.

“I’m feel lost,” she confessed. “Being on Jakku confirmed that I had never lived there but I do recall enough to say that I _had_ been there.”

Finn’s brows knitted together. “I’m not sure if I’m following this. So are you saying that you _are_ from Jakku after all?”

“No,” she clarified, realizing that she had made a poor wording choice earlier. “But I had visited there once, I think.” She slumped into the copilot’s seat as she watched Finn work on Dameron. “I don’t know what to think, actually. I can’t remember as much as I’d like to, but I am starting to separate myself from the fake memories. It makes me feel like I’m not real or something. Whoever did this to me – Snoke, Kylo, whoever else – I was like a droid to them. They reprogrammed me as they saw fit.”

“I thought about this too,” Finn said. “And I wondered why they wouldn’t do this to cadets from the start if they wanted a perfect, conforming soldier.”

“And did you come up with an answer?” asked Rey. She was curious to hear his thoughts about this. He did bring up a good point.

“Only that the technique was too extreme and too risky for the ranks. You had the Force, the cadets don’t… probably. It’s not like the First Order tests for that. That, and this also meant that they wanted you to do something but couldn’t get you to from the start. They had to remake you into a different person.”

“Kylo wanted me to help him find Luke Skywalker,” she told him. “He wants to kill him to end the Jedi. If he is really my father, then he knew I wouldn’t do it.” She tried to search her memories for something of those moments when she first was handed over to Snoke but found that she could only recall memories of pain and fear. There had been times she resisted the dark side, to Snoke’s anger, but she couldn’t recall why or how she tried to resist.

“I’m tired of this, Finn,” she said, crawling closer to him. “When we get Poe and BB-8 to the Resistance, I’ll talk to Organa to confirm all this. But after that, I’m not sure if I want to stay.” She looked at him. “What do you want to do, after this?” She admitted to herself that she really hadn’t made a plan past getting to the Resistance. A small part of her thought she would want to reunite with her family, but everything from what the First Order had done to her and Finn had left her tired. She wasn’t sure if she had the energy or even the interest to join another group and their fighting, even if her family played a central part in it.

He pulled her into an embrace, wrapping his arms around her waist and lower back as he pressed his chin against her shoulder. Warmth. Finn was warm and she found that she’d rather not leave this spot any time soon. It was such a simple observation, but Rey found that the simplest of things began to hold more importance to her than anything else.

“Honestly?” began Finn. “I didn’t think much about that because I wasn’t sure we were going to pull off an escape. But I want to give you the chance to sort out… whatever this is.” He made a waving gesture to her head, indicating he was talking about the state of her mind. “Maybe after that we can talk again. I wouldn’t mind at least figuring out what world I was from, even if we can’t find my family.

“I’d like to help with that,” said Rey, leaning her head a bit against his. “If you want me to.”

Finn smiled. “I’d like nothing more.”

* * *

On the bridge of the _Finalizer,_ two of the First Order’s most powerful figures stood at odds with each other as they waited for news.

“It seems, Ren, that your apprentice had plotted this for a long time,” General Hux hissed. “She compromised the mind and loyalty of one of my troops and it looks like she was planning to corrupt more based on her requests.”

“A single common trooper managed to free a prisoner and escort him to a hangar without alarming anyone else’s suspicions,” retorted Kylo. “We’ve seen the videos. Sira did not help him with that part. Obviously, some of your troops are capable of high treason while the rest cannot see what’s in front of them. Perhaps it is time to consider the use of clones instead.”

“My men are exceptional,” Hux fired back. “Programmed from birth. Just because you couldn’t do the same to your apprentice-"

Kylo interrupted him. “As long as your exceptional men can keep the map out of the hands of the Resistance,” he snapped.

“Again with this map! It might not even exist!”

“It would be wise, General, to keep these thoughts to yourself.” Kylo’s voice had darkened, a warning of danger if anyone wanted to push him any farther. Everyone on the bridge, including Captain Phasma, took a step backwards from the two arguing men.

The First Order had tracked the traitors and the prisoner back to Jakku. It hadn’t been hard, really. Sira Ren had taken great effort to make sure that her transport would be set for deployment at a moment’s notice and took care to make sure that it would not be traceable, but not being far from the world meant that the TIE patrol on duty had still picked them up on their sensors and spotted the transport heading to the desert world.

It was obvious to everyone to why they were going there: they were going back for the droid. 

Kylo’s pride purred with excitement because this meant that even Hux had not realized what was right in front of him. The map existed. And it was hidden inside a BB unit that was left to hide on the world by the Resistance pilot. Hux was a fool to doubt Kylo’s word. 

But he was losing patience. Hours after sending soldiers and TIEs to search the world and there was still no word about if they had been found or not. Sira had not been gone long and the Supreme Leader had not made note of her absence yet. If she returned and Kylo could convince her to behave, perhaps he could protect her from the worst of the Supreme Leader’s wrath.

He thought she was ready to work on her own, without a master to guide her. How wrong he had been. It had become so obvious to him when he took her on his last mission how unruly she still was. Like a feral creature, she was angry and on edge the entire time, but instead of using that anger constructively, that anger was redirected into disorder and usually towards him. She simply would not follow orders and was prone to distracted thought, wandering off at the sight of the slightest curiosity.

That behavior of hers had frustrated him to no end. Even making him so angry that he had to restrain himself from lashing out. 

The sound of hurried footsteps signaled the arrival of someone new. Kylo turned around to see the figure of Mitaka nervously stopped at the stairs of the bridge. He had something to report and whatever it was, it wasn’t good news.

“Do you have a report, Lieutenant, or are you just standing there on your own time?” 

Mitaka made the last final steps with a heaviness in his movement. Then, when all eyes were on him, he began.

“Sir, despite out best efforts we were unable to acquire the droid on Jakku or capture the traitors.”

“I assume that both failures are connected?” said Hux. 

“Go on,” sneered Kylo.

Mitaka hesitated and swallowed hard. “Reports indicate that the droid escaped capture onboard a stolen Corellian freighter. An old YT model. We also caught sight of Sira Ren and the trooper FN-2187 boarding-“

He startled as Kylo activated his lightsaber and raised the blade. Kylo knew that everyone expected him to kill Mitaka for the report, however they were somewhat relieved to watch him make a slashing movement towards the nearest console on the bridge, burning lines into the metal and tech. Even if he had not taken his fury out on a person, his rage was a terrifying sight to behold and everyone nearby backed away even farther from him.

Kylo was pleased to see Hux pale a shade as he switched his lightsaber off. Then, he turned back to Mitaka and calmed his voice as if nothing had just happened.

“Anything else?” he asked.

Mitaka gulped. “No, sir.”

He waited to gage the reaction from the Lieutenant and only found the continuation of fear making itself known in the Force. 

“Do we know where they were heading?” asked Hux.

Mitaka shook his head. “Our TIEs pursued them and were both brought down making chase. We have no indication of what direction they were heading it once they left the atmosphere.”

Of course, Hux had an idea right away. “We’ll get word out to our eyes and ears throughout the galaxy. A bounty will also be placed to whoever can capture them or can give information. There will be someone on every world looking for them.”

Kylo crossed his arms. “If we do not have reported sightings in a good time frame, General, I will have to take matters into my own hands.”

“Our allies in the galaxy will not fail us,” Hux promised.

“See that they don’t,” said Kylo. “I’ll have the Knights of Ren briefed and ready to start their search in the meantime.”

As he walked away, he took in Hux’s face once more and saw that the man was torn between anger, frustration, and fear. Hux did not like to use the Knights of Ren when deploying troops were also an option. In his opinion, Kylo and his fellow Knights were too forceful and violent when they went planetside. Ironic, given that he would be happy to send a small army to do the same mission. 

No matter. Kylo was certain that the Force would bring him and his former apprentice together again soon. And if she did not comply to his will this time, he would make sure she was given the punishment that a traitor deserved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because this is essentially a TFA rewrite, this story will be a lot more action-oriented than the first installment. Currently, I am writing a third fic for this series that is somewhat based off of TLJ but consists of only about 15% of the films's plot and mixes action with emotion again. 
> 
> Like with TFA, the timeline to this story is short and only takes place over a few days. Since I am trying not to make a full rewrite, the rule here is if the scene does not differ in any way to TFA, it will not be included in this fic. You can assume that anything not included in here is the same as the film.


	2. Chapter 2

Poe ended up being okay. He was out for another couple of minutes, but he groggily came to with only a headache to complain about.

“It’s not the worst thing that happened to me today,” he grimly joked to a concerned BB-8. “I guess if I’m awake that means we’re still alive.”

His droid filled him in on everything that happened since Jakku: Rey’s flight and Finn’s shooting, the pair fixing him up, now they were trying to fix a hissing motivator to make sure they really didn’t die this time.

That got Poe up and he rushed in to see if they needed help, his headache forgotten.

He found Finn kneeling by an opening in the deck, peering down to what Poe guessed was Rey, and then looked back to the pile of tools with a very confused look on his face. The hissing and the emergency alarm made it too hard for him to hear anything, so he moved in closer.

“How bad is it?” Poe yelled down to Rey.

“If we want to live,” she called up, “not good.”

Finn turned to Poe. “Beebee-ate said that the location of the Resistance base is on a ‘need-to-know’ basis. We kind of _need to know,_ but he won’t tell us.”

Poe glared at his droid. “Bee, you be nice, alright? If it weren’t for them, I would have been executed on that Star Destroyer and you would have gotten picked up by the First Order or scrapped for parts.” He motioned for Finn to move so he could be close to the tools scattered in front of him to help Rey.

Finn gave BB-8 a sideways glance as the droid positioned its head to make it look like it felt guilty after Poe’s reprimanding, but Finn knew that the droid didn’t feel anything resembling guilt. He was toying with his and Rey’s patience and it seemed like he was having fun with it.

“Okay, droid,” Finn looked BB-8 squarely in his visual sensor. “You heard Poe. Tell us where the base is.”

BB-8 gave a series of beeps, which led Finn to swear under his breath impatiently.

“Right,” he reminded himself. “I don’t speak that.” He jolted his thumb behind him, in Rey’s direction. “Will you tell this to her?”

BB-8 only rolled his head to his side and said nothing.

“Droid, _please,”_ he hissed. He was growing impatient. The Resistance certainly had peculiar tastes in droids and their personalities. The First Order would have taken a droid behaving like BB-8 up for reprogramming. Only considerate, rule-following droids were desirable to the First Order, similar to how they wanted their troops.

“Pilex driver, hurry!” he heard Rey tell Poe, who scrambled through the tools to find one for her. “So Beebee-ate,” she called as she waited for the tool, “you gonna tell me where your base is?”

Poe eyed his droid warily, hoping that with his permission, BB-8 finally trusted the pair.

“Go on Beebee-ate,” encouraged Finn. “Tell her.”

A final delay of silence almost made Finn toss his hands up in annoyance, but the droid turned its head in Rey’s direction and uttered a short couple of beeps her way.

“The Ileenium system?”

“That’s the one.” Poe smiled as he handed Rey the wrench he finally located.

As she disappeared once again into the piping, Finn turned to BB-8 and gave him a thumbs-up. In response, BB-8 shot his wielding torch out of one of his compartments to imitate the gesture.

At least, that’s what Finn was hoping that meant.

Poe chuckled. “A party trick I taught him,” he confessed. “Everyone thinks it’s cute.”

Well, even Finn could admit that it kind of was.

Rey’s head popped up again. “Bonding tape, hurry!”

Jumping in to help Poe out, Finn searched through the pile of tools again.

“So you guys said that General Organa was willing to meet with you if you got me out, right?” Poe started. “You guys thinking of joining or-?”

“No,” Finn and Rey answered in unison.

Finn took over to explain. “Senator Organa’s has some… _information_ for Rey. Possibly. She might help us stay out of First Order sights too.” He looked over at Rey, who was giving him a look that told him not to say too much. “Rescuing you was to earn her trust. We might give her some other information in return.”

“And then?”

“…We haven’t really decided yet,” he confessed. “Rey and I really just needed to leave the First Order. Things were starting to get bad for us. If we stayed…” He shuddered, thinking of what might have happened to himself if he had ever been caught in bed with Rey or reading a holonovel that wasn’t approved by the First Order. If Snoke was unhappy with her, he might have used Finn as a way to punish her, and that certainly wouldn’t have been a good thing for him.

“The Resistance will protect you-" Poe tried.

Rey shook her head as the vapor around her started to lessen. “We don’t want to get caught up with whatever you guys are doing. Finn and I don’t want to fight anymore.” She looked a little sad as Finn tossed her what he thought was sealer. “No, _that_ one.” She pointed her finger at a large group of tools close to him and he picked up another tool. “No, the one I’m pointing to!”

“You’re not being good at pointing right now!” he said, exasperated as he held up another tool.

“No.”

Another device.

“No. The one to your left. No, Finn!”

As a hint, BB-8 pointed his head at another tool. Poe watched this exchange with amusement.

“This?” Finn held up the tool that BB-8 had indicated.

“Yes!” She caught it as he tossed it to her. 

“I hate to pry,” said Poe, though he sounded like he was not sorry at all, “but are you guys _together?"_

That made Rey pause in her work as she looked over at Finn. He actually had never thought of it like that before. He loved being with Rey, sleeping next to her, kissing her, talking to her, but he never had matched a word to what exactly their relationship was, worried that it might end up being short-lived or that the First Order would tear them apart.

Rey finally responded with a little smirk on her face. “Yeah, Finn’s my cute boyfriend.”

Finn knew that the smile on his face was probably too wide and looked goofy, but that had meant the galaxy to him.

But now wasn’t the time to be captivated by happiness, not when the lights of the freighter dimmed and flickered, halting all further conversation.

Rey climbed out of the floor opening and everyone ran for the cockpit.

As Finn sat in the copilot’s seat, he noted that the console was dead.

“Is it the motivator?” he asked, referring to the part she was trying to fix. He looked to both her and Poe for an answer.

“It’s not the motivator,” Rey confirmed with a frown.

 _“Worse_ than the motivator?”

Poe made his way into the pilot’s seat and began checking the console. “It’s something else.” He tried a few controls before he slumped back into the seat with a groan. “Someone’s locked on to us. All controls overridden. Even life support.”

“To get us to cooperate,” Rey agreed.

Finn tried to calm himself down, though his body was in sheer panic mode. He tried to see outside the freighter only to watch as it was surrounded by the cargo bay of an even bigger freighter. It was catching them the way someone would catch a fish in a net.

“It’s the First Order,” he breathed. He didn’t think after Jakku that they would have been captured that quickly, but now that they were, Finn doubted that he and Poe were going to be allowed to live for much longer. Rey had better odds, but her fate would be left up to the whim of the Supreme Leader and that meant that she was facing an existence that might be far worse than death.

And they had been so close to getting to the Resistance…

But, he said to himself, he would do it all again just for the chance to be free from the First Order. At least he got a small taste of it.

Wait a minute…

“Rey,” he turned to her. “When you were working earlier, you said something about poisonous gas?”

“Yeah,” she said slowly, as if she were catching on to what he was getting at.

“Can you _unfix_ it?”

With a wide grin, Poe patted Finn on the back as he rushed out of the cockpit with Rey and Finn behind him. BB-8, bewildered and nervous, followed close to them.

On the way back to the dock, Finn grabbed three emergency masks that should work just fine for this plan. While Rey went to work, he helped Poe lower BB-8 into the opening and handed everyone a mask before placing his own over his mouth and nose. Then, he peaked out of the opening one more time before lifting the metal floor panel back into place.

“Good idea, buddy,” said Poe.

“Stormtrooper helmets filter out smoke, not toxins,” he explained quickly. “I doubt that any of them are going to check for poisonous gas before they enter.”

“Huh.” Poe took that information in. “Good to know.”

Finn winced at the thought of Poe relaying this information to the Resistance. For all that he had against the First Order, he really didn’t want to see his old squadmates die by breathing in toxic air. He’d rather not see them die at all. Yet he couldn’t expect the Resistance to not kill stormtroopers. They were their enemy, after all.

The ramp of the freighter was lowered outside.

“Hurry,” he urged Rey.

“Does it look like I’m taking my time?”

Then, they heard a new voice above them.

“Chewie, we’re home.”

* * *

When the floor panel was ripped away, Rey instinctively reached for her saber spear, only to curse that she had left it in the cockpit. It wouldn’t have fit down there anyway. She was already uncomfortably pressed against Finn and Dameron once BB-8 had been added in.

But the person above them was not what they were expecting to see. He was not a stormtrooper, nor did he look to be anyone involved with the First Order. He was an angry older man, with gray hair and aiming a blaster at them. 

They all raised their hands in surrender. Rey thought about how she could use the Force to manipulate the surroundings. He didn’t look like a Force-user; she could probably toss him against something if she had to. But she wanted to wait to see what this man wanted.

And what puzzled her was that there was something familiar about him, but she couldn’t place if she had seen him in a wanted post made by the First Order or if she had seen him as she world hopped on missions. He looked like the kind of man that might hang around a seedy cantina…

“Are there others?” The man looked confused as he took the three humans and the droid in. Rey knew that she and Finn probably looked like frightened children and Poe looked like he could barely stand up.

“We’re all that’s here,” she told him. “I’m the pilot.”

_“You?”_

“It’s just us and the droid,” she told him. She was quickly coming up with a lie in her head, though she wasn’t sure how good Poe was to follow her lead. Finn wasn’t a great liar, but he at least could catch on to what she was doing. She was about to say that they were a small team of spacers that had been living on the freighter for a while, but the man’s partner, a Wookie, growled his disbelief.

“No,” she insisted. “It’s true.”

“Wait,” Finn stopped her. “You can understand that thing?”

And she paused to realize that she could understand the Wookie, despite not being able to remember if she had ever actually met one before.

“And _that thing_ can understand you,” the man growled at Finn. “So watch it.”

Rey almost did toss the man into the nearest wall right then, but the Wookie also had a blaster aimed at them.

“Come on,” the man waved his blaster. “Get outta there, you three.” 

If it wasn’t for the blaster being in the picture, Rey would have thought there was something… teasing about the way the man was behaving. She thought she saw a hint of a smile as she raised herself out of the floor. She helped Finn with BB-8, and then made sure that Poe was okay getting out without help.

“Where’d you find this ship?” asked the man.

“Niima Outpost,” she answered.

“Jakku? That junkyard?”

“Thank you!” Finn nearly laughed. _“Junkyard.”_

“Told you we should’ve checked the Western Reaches,” the man growled at his partner. “It was just luck that we happened to be in the same area when the beacon went off.” Then he snapped his attention back to the trio. “Who had it, Ducain?”

Rey shrugged. “Dunno,” she told him. “We stole it off Jakku, but I have no idea who it belonged-"

“It belongs to _me,”_ he said, anger lacing his voice. “It was stolen.”

While Rey did not find the man that threatening anymore, she still didn’t quite have an idea what he was about. If he just wanted the freighter, well, he could have it if he helped them get on another transport to the Resistance. Maybe he could even drop them off on the way to… wherever he was going.

Poe chuckled lightly and Rey noticed suddenly that his demeanor was a stark contrast to Finn and herself. Actually, he seemed calm, oddly enough. 

The man took a step towards her and she felt Finn tense up next to her. She reached her arm out towards him as a way to calm him. Since they figured out that they had been captured, Finn had been on the edge, maybe even on the verge of another panic attack. She worried that in his anxiousness that he might do something foolish.

She wanted to tell him that the First Order would never harm him as long as she was around, but even she knew she could not make that promise.

“Well,” the man continued, “I guess it doesn’t matter who had it. Han Solo just stole back the _Millennium Falcon_ for good.”

Rey snapped her head up in disbelief.

Han Solo.

A legend of the Rebellion. Expert smuggler and con man.

And, if Rey was right about her family, her uncle.

Poe smiled in awe at the man in front of them, and Solo quirked his lips as if he were trying to hide the smirk he almost made from the recognition. Obviously, Poe was familiar with the stories too, and no one gave Finn or Rey a different kind of glance at their widened eyes.

Finn looked to Rey, acknowledging the situation they had just found themselves in. He was waiting for her to take the lead on this, for her to tell him how they should proceed. 

_Remember?_ he mouthed to her and she made a slight shrug of her shoulders, hoping to not draw attention to the movement.

She searched the memories she knew to be real for anything resembling this man. Anything that might hint to an uncle or a male relative that was close to her. Then she tried to think of the Wookie and the freighter they were on.

Nothing came to her and she made sure to keep her sigh of disappointment silent.

But as she looked at Han again, who was now looking back at her, she didn’t register a sense of recognition in his face. The look he gave her told her that he was regarding a stranger. She decided for now to not say anything more. 

Then, Han lowered the blaster and headed in the opposite direction. 

Finn, Rey, and Poe found themselves alone in the lounge of the freighter. They looked to each other before shuffling towards the cockpit in unison.

When they were out of Poe’s earshot, Finn asked her, “What are you gonna do?”

And with sincerity and a hint of hopelessness, Rey told him, “I don’t know.”

* * *

“This was a mistake!” Rey complained as she and Finn made a run for it through the corridors of the _Ervana._

 _“Huge,”_ he agreed. And she would admit that she hadn’t been thinking when she tossed that Guavian Death Gang member into the nearest wall, causing him to hit a console in the process and subsequently let a trio of rathtars loose. Her instinct had taken over when she saw the man aim his blaster a little too close in her direction. In most cases, following her instinct wouldn’t have been a bad thing – even Snoke and Kylo had acknowledged that – but this time, it just caused a bigger problem.

Han, Chewbacca, Poe, and BB-8 had run in the opposite direction of them, towards the _Millennium Falcon._ Separated, Finn and Rey would have to figure out their own way there without getting eaten in the process.

Finn glanced down the next corridor they were about to turn down. Brightly lit, with no hostile gang members or hunger-crazed monsters, it looked safe enough.

 _“Falcon’s_ this way.” He pointed.

“You sure?”

“No. But would you rather stay here?”

Fair point. She wasn’t as worried as he was, she realized, because she at least had the Force at her disposal. Her saber spear might still be on the _Falcon_ (she didn’t think she would need it when Han brought them onboard) but at least she had something. Finn had nothing on his being except for the clothes on his back. She was too on the edge to be able to use the Force to see ahead by sensing bodies and movement, but at least she knew that she could use it to throw someone in the air if she needed to.

As they rounded the corner, they came to a sudden halt as they watched the remaining gang members fighting for survival with the tentacle creatures. And by the look of it, the creatures were winning. 

One of the rathtars grabbed one of the gang members and moved him into its rotating, razor-sharp maw as the human screamed before going silent. Horrified, Rey found herself unable to look away.

She reached back for Finn, and his hand met her arm and gripped gently around it. He led her back the way they came and tried another corridor.

A tentacle wrapped around Finn’s waist far quicker than they could have registered. It pulled him away, leaving Rey giving chase.

“FINN!”

She watched him struggle to break free, but the creature’s hold was too strong for even him.

_“Finn,” _she called again as she watched him try to take a bite out of the tentacle to try to get the creature to drop him. She tried to halt it with the Force, but found it was too quick for her to get a grip on. Soon it whipped around another corner and she lost sight of them.__

She couldn’t lose Finn. Not like this. Not after everything they had gone through. 

Desperate, Rey decided that she needed to concentrate. She looked for Finn through the Force and found that the rathtar was not interested in eating him at the moment. Rather, it seemed like it was saving him for later.

It had also slowed down significantly. Perhaps it was content with what it had already eaten and the catch it had just made.

Concentrating harder, she moved through the maze of corridors in their direction and when she found she was close enough, she held her hand in front of her, imagining that the rathtar was a small, rubbery ball in her grip. 

The creature came to a halt. The sound it made told her that it was surprised by its sudden inability to move. Then, she squeezed her hand around that invisible ball, causing the rathtar to make more sounds of alarm and discomfort.

When she reached them, she screamed. “Drop him!”

And it did just that by unwrapping the tentacles around Finn. However, he was a few feet in the air and suddenly found himself dropping hard to the floor of the freighter.

“Ow!”

Her thoughts were occupied by the creature panicking in her grasp. Finn, suddenly, had been set aside in her mind. It felt good to make the rathtar fear her; she wanted it to after it almost took away the only important person in her life. It shook and cried, its hunger forgotten and replaced with a desperation to survive. The cries it made as she squeezed it with the Force suggested that it was, in its own way, begging for mercy.

She ought to kill it for what it had done, for the moments of fear it had caused her. If she killed it, that would ensure that it would never bring that fear to her again. She almost purred with the thought.

But Finn’s sudden discomfort also echoed in the Force. He was watching her and he was not sure if he was liking what he was witnessing. It resembled the fear and distrust that he had of her when they first met, when she realized that her best way to earn his trust wasn’t to be the person that she was told to be, but rather the person she once was.

She was acting like the person that Snoke tried to force her to be; the person that she found she didn’t like.

But she couldn’t let the rathtar just go. Scared as it was, its nature suggested that it would quickly forget that fear and its stomach would become its mind.

So, she flung the invisible ball hard against the far end of the corridor. The rathtar sprung in that direction, hitting the metal with a loud _thunk_ as it moaned and slid to the floor. She might have seriously harmed it and inevitably caused its death, but now Rey did not care.

Finn looked upset.

“Which way did you say the _Falcon_ was?” she asked him. She wanted to say something about what just happened, but words evaded her when she looked at his face. Back on the _Finalizer,_ when it was just them, Rey never had to use the dark side around him. There had been no real danger in the quiet of her private corridors and nightmares and the fear of being caught had been their greatest enemy. Now, when there was an actual threat to their lives, she had no choice but to show him that side of her, the side that she would have also preferred to have kept hidden.

He pointed again. “It’s this way. I hope.”

* * *

Rey found that she still had to use the Force to keep her and Finn safe from the blaster fire of the surviving gang members they encountered on the way to the _Falcon._ She made quick work of them, not taunting them the way she did with the rathtar. Finn, at least, seemed okay with that.

Han and Dameron peered out of the Falcon with relief as they reached the ramp.

“Shut the hatch,” Han told Poe. “You.” He pointed at Finn. “You take care of Chewie.” He half-threw the wounded Wookie in Finn’s direction.

Rey watched Finn struggle with Chewbacca as he tried to help him to the medbay. She silently walked behind them, using the Force to balance the Wookie and help Finn from taking all of the weight. As he began to rummage through the supplies in the room, Rey realized that Han was without a co-pilot unless Poe was helping him. She decided that she should at least offer the help if he needed it.

Also, she wanted time to get to know him without someone else around.

She found Han in the cockpit hitting the controls on the console in haste to get the _Falcon_ powered up again.

“Do you need any help?” Rey asked when she noted that Poe was not there, startling Han in the process. She didn’t wait for him to answer as she settled in the co-pilot’s seat.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Han growled. “Passengers back there.”

“I hadn’t got to look at it much,” she said as she began to scan the controls with her eyes, “but I noticed that a fuel pump had been installed. If we don’t prime it, we’re not going anywhere.”

“I hate that guy. I don’t even know who he is, but I hate him.”

Rey looked at him with sympathy. “You need a copilot, by the look of things.”

“I got one.” Han frowned.

A roar of pain echoed in the freighter, followed by Finn’s shouts of, _“Chewie, it’s just a flesh wound!”_ Which was followed by more growls.

Rey grinned. She could tell by the way Finn was talking that he was probably handling things. If he were nervous, he wouldn’t be acting like that. She smugly looked at Han.

 _“Fine,”_ he snapped. “Fuel pump’s primed. We’re gonna jump to lightspeed.” He turned on the internal comms in the freighter. “Watch yourself,” he warned.

She frowned. “From _inside_ the hanger?” she asked. Rey had been around all sorts of ships and craft, she knew many of the First Order’s designs inside and out, but she had never heard of anyone trying _this._ “Is that even possible?”

“I never answer that question until after I’ve done it,” he replied as he focused on the controls.

Their risky jump into lightspeed was interrupted by a stray rathtar landing on top of the ship. The mouth almost covered the forward port and it startled Rey into an actual scream, which brought Finn running in from the corridor in a mad dash to figure out what was going on.

“Oh, _kriff,”_ he yelled. 

Poe promptly also gathered into the cockpit, making it seemed far too cramped than it needed to be. He paled when he saw the problem. “Do you need anyone to go out and try to… take care of it?”

“No!” Han looked exasperated. “Just sit down! This is not how I thought this day was gonna go,” he muttered to himself before he looked over at Rey. “Shields up. Angle them.”

“Got it,” she replied. “Pretty solid shields for a Corellian freighter this old.”

“Watch it,” he warned. “The Corellians make ‘em just how I like ‘em… And I may have added my own touches here and there. You might not believe this, but some people don’t like me.”

“I would have never guessed,” Finn deadpanned. Rey shot him an amused grin.

Shots were fired outside of the freighter, telling them that the surviving gang members were trying a last-ditch effort to stop them. With the shields up, the attempt was pitiful at best. The freighter was ready and Han prepared himself to go through with his idea.

“Hang on,” Han warned again. “We’re leaving in a rush.”

“Wait,” said Poe, eyes wide as he figured out what Han was about to do. “Are you really-?”

“Come on baby,” Han said to the _Falcon_ like it was alive. “Don’t let me down.” He urged the freighter into lightspeed.

…Nothing happened.

“Compressor,” Rey said in a matter-of-fact and pointed to the component.

Han glared at her as he pulled the drive control back slowly. Then, with a hint of smugness, he smiled at her as the engines roared to life. The hangar of the _Ervana_ pulled away from them and vanished in an instant. The force of the jump brought the _Falcon_ to move through the rathtar, causing it to fall apart.

“Eck,” said Poe.

BB-8, who was secure in the corner of the cockpit, mirrored his partner’s disgust.

* * *

Han shooed Poe and Finn out of the cockpit while he and Rey fussed over getting the _Falcon_ back to working order. Whoever had the freighter on Jakku had done the bare minimum in terms of maintenance, and while the alarms were working just fine at the moment, the rest of the ship was not.

Finn and Poe turned their attention to Chewbacca and his injuries, though Poe told the two in the cockpit to call him if they needed help. He was the best pilot in the Resistance after all; he knew all sorts of things about in-flight repairs. 

Han had only rolled his eyes at that bit.

Before he got to work, Finn shrugged out of the flight jacket that he borrowed earlier and reached his arm out to give it back to Poe.

He would not take his jacket back. “Nah,” he said. “Keep it. It suits you.”

Finn looked down at the jacket in his hands, running his fingers against the old leather. It looked to be older and well-worn, possibly something that Poe had even brought from home when he joined up in the Resistance. He would have thought it would have been important to him.

But, no one had ever given him a gift before and he paused in his thoughts for a moment when he took in the idea of receiving a gift for the first time. He felt… touched by the gesture.

“I thought she was just a Knight of Ren,” Poe murmured, which got Finn’s attention.

“She was,” he affirmed.

“A Knight of Ren, an amazing pilot, _and_ an excellent mechanic to boot?” 

Finn brought Chewbacca’s arm into a sling while he answered. “She loves to fly and to work on ships,” he told Poe. “Only thing she really seemed to truly enjoy. She wanted to be put in charge of the First Order’s starfighter fleet.”

While Poe had been obviously stressed over the last few hours, that bit of information almost seemed to toss him over the edge. “Kriff, I’m glad she wasn’t! We – the Resistance – wouldn’t have stood a chance with her in charge of the fleet! Had enough trouble as it was!” Then he stopped. “So are you telling me that the Knights of Ren aren’t just Force-using thugs of Snoke?”

“Is that what the Resistance believes?” Finn blinked.

“That’s about all we could uncover about them. General Organa’s particularly interested in that Kylo guy. Actually, I don’t recall of ever hearing of Rey.”

Finn decided that he could clarify a bit more. That was information that he felt he could offer, at any rate, and it wouldn’t give too much away. “Rey went by the name of Sira Ren,” he explained. “Rey’s her real name. She was… maybe a few months out of her apprenticeship when we met. She rarely went on the missions that the other Knights did. She didn’t want to.”

“And how exactly did you two meet?” asked Poe. Even BB-8 and Chewbacca were watching Finn closely now, interested in what he had to say.

“I was part of her personal guard.” Well, that was a lie, but he didn’t want to explain the nightmare thing. Not many people would probably understand that without asking more questions and he didn’t want to reveal much without Rey’s permission. She seemed pretty adamant that they not say too much about who they were until they actually met Leia Organa. Not that he could blame Rey, she seemed so upset earlier about her lack of memories and her initial confusion about how to speak with Han. If it turned out she wasn’t a Skywalker…

Poe frowned. “I see,” he began. “And you… _trust_ her?”

“With my life,” Finn answered without hesitation. “I got picked up by a rathtar back there, you know. She charged right at it.”

“Woah.”

Finn felt a small sense of pride in his chest that Rey had reacted the way she did. At the same time, he recalled that feeling of upset in his stomach as he watched her taunt the rathtar as she decided if she should let it live or not. For a brief moment, he really thought she was going to use the Force to squash it like an insect. If she had killed it, he wouldn’t have been angry at her for that, the rathtar was going to eat him, after all. No, what upset him was this new side of Rey, the violent side that he only started to see in the last twenty-four hours. He probably shouldn’t have been surprised considered how she was trained and what she had been trained to do, but up until that moment in Niima, Finn had only seen the quiet and gentle side of Rey, even if that side had been surrounded by hopelessness and despair. 

“Don’t get me wrong,” Finn continued, “Rey is of the dark side. She is very dangerous when she needs to be. But she doesn’t want to be. She’s dark, but she’s not like the other Knights.”

“Not evil, you mean?” laughed Poe.

“No.”

“There’s something else though,” Poe observed. “There’s a reason you’re going to the Resistance and I don’t think it’s just to ask General Organa for help and to give up some secrets. You two are hiding something.”

“Care to take a guess?” Finn teased, though he was nervous that they might have given something away on accident.

Poe shook his head. “Unless you guys are playing double-agents, I don’t think whatever you are keeping is any of my business. Your girlfriend seems a little agitated, stressed.” Then he smirked. “Not running from the First Order to hide an illegitimate kid on the way, are you?”

Stuttering, Finn said, “What-? _No!_ Nothing like that.” Though to be honest, if that was what was going on, Finn might have been less afraid for Rey. He worried what would happen if she found that the memories she thought were real also turned out to be false. He also worried what would happen if she found out they were real… An accidental pregnancy might have been easier to deal with.

The alarm suddenly shut off, causing the _Falcon_ to suddenly go eerily quiet. 

“Well,” Poe said with a hint of admiration in his voice. “I guess she knows her stuff. I know she’s not interested, but the Resistance could always use a good mechanic.”

* * *

In the cockpit, Rey held up her arm to show Han her victory against the unwanted modifications to the freighter.

“What did you do?” he asked as he looked around the instrumentation.

She beamed. “I bypassed the compressor!”

Han stared at her and the discarded component in her hand. “Huh,” he sounded, before he aimed a question at Rey herself. “What did you say your name was, kid?” 

“I’m Rey.” She searched his face for a reaction, any indication that he had some recognition for her. The only thing she saw in Han’s face was the brief shadow of sorrow, of a sad memory that passed through his mind.

He stood up. “Great job, kid.” He smiled before he left the cockpit without any other orders. She noted how his head was slumped downward and his pace slowed slightly than what it had been like before, even when there wasn’t anything of importance to attend to.

Only the Force could tell her what he was feeling without guesswork: sadness, regret, a wistful longing for a happier time. The Force would always tell the truth when others didn’t.

Frowning, she wondered if she had done something wrong. There had been no further questions from him. He did not ask her where she was from or even for a last name. She would have thought, at least, that he would have asked about her usage of the Force. 

As she had worked with him, she tried to concentrate to see if anything about him jolted a memory, and to her joy, something had. A happy memory. A childhood memory. Someone had taught her the basics of mechanics once, naming off all the tools she encountered and tried to explain what each component did in a way that a child would understand. And she had been so excited then, however old she was, to be of help to this person. Loved it as this person had ruffled her hair in affection and praise.

But Han might not have been that person after all.

 _“You had nothing,”_ she heard the voice of Snoke in her head, reminding her of why her mind was so scrambled in the first place. _“You were nothing. There was no family. Nobody had wanted you... But_ we _do. We want you.”_

She slumped back into the copilot’s chair and covered her face in her hands. Under that despair, that anger boiling underneath began to make itself known again. Every time she thought about the Supreme Leader, she wanted to grab something and smash it with her own strength.

“I hate him,” she said to herself.

Tears began to form in her eyes as she sat there, thinking. She hoped that no one would come looking for her and find her like this.

She would never forgive Snoke or Kylo for what they had done to her.

* * *

As Finn and Poe were struggling with Chewbacca, who was clinging to them like a baby Ewok and growling in a threatening manner the entire time, Han passed through the medbay.

“You hurt Chewie,” he snarled to the men, “you deal with _me!”_

“Hurt _him?”_ Poe tried to get another bandage on the Wookie’s arm.

“He almost killed us six times!” complained Finn.

Chewbacca began to speak to Han, which neither Finn nor Poe could understand. Han smiled as he looked over his copilot and his injuries.

“Nah,” he reassured him. “They just got a lucky shot is all. Kid’s good,” he nodded his head in the direction of the cockpit, “but she’ll never be the best.”

He then turned back to Finn and Poe. “Great job with Chewie. Thanks.” If Finn didn’t know better, that took a lot of effort on Han’s part to say.

“You’re welcome,” said Finn. He sat down at the holochess table and accidentally bumped against it, flicking it on. Alarmed, he shuffled around to try to find a way to turn it off.

He saw Han make a small smile before getting serious again. “So,” he started. “Fugitives, huh?”

“Traitors, actually,” he corrected. 

“I was a prisoner,” added Poe.

Han looked back at Finn. “First Order?”

Shifting uncomfortably in his seat, Finn sighed. “Stormtrooper. Rey was… well, she was a Knight of Ren.”

The smirk on Han’s face fell. He glanced back in the direction on the cockpit, then back at Finn. 

Poe then approached him. “General Solo.”

Han gaped. _“General?”_

But Poe ignored him and continued. “We’re all here because of what BB-8’s got. He’s holding onto a map. Both the Resistance and the First Order want it.”

“Must be some map,” said Han.

“Ship systems are stable.”

From the corridor, Rey joined them and immediately went to Finn’s side. Sitting next to him by the holochess table in the booth, she snuggled into his side. As he happily wrapped his arm around her shoulder to bring her closer, he noticed that her eyes were tinted pink. Had she been crying?

Despite wanting to talk to her, he knew she would not appreciate him making her emotional discomfort known to the others and kept quiet. He could ask her later.

“We believe that this is a map to Luke Skywalker,” Poe finally said.

Han was interested now.

“Let’s see what you got,” he said to BB-8. The droid rolled in a position where he could project the image without getting it cut off by any furniture or crates. With a flicker of his lens, the lounge was filled by an enormous star map. Everyone, including Chewbacca, stared at the map intensely. Finn even found himself trying to memorize parts of it.

But Han frowned. “It’s accurate,” he announced. “But incomplete.”

Poe pointed to the empty gap in the map, pointing to star clusters in systems. “Do you recognize any of these?” he asked. “I would think that you-“

“Kid,” Han interrupted. “I’ve been to many places, but even I have not traveled the entire galaxy.” He grunted. “Since Luke left, the galaxy’s been a mess trying to find him. Leia told me a war was coming. There was a point that I thought that his disappearance was going to start it.”

“It still might,” said Rey. “My master – my _former_ master,” she corrected herself, “was obsessed with finding him. He believes that if he kills Skywalker then the Jedi can never return.”

“And who’s that?” spat Han. “Snoke?”

“Kylo Ren,” she told him. 

Han immediately stopped talking. Finn noticed that while he was trying to seem indifferent, his face betrayed him. It was pained and like how Rey behaved when Finn first met her; she would also try to hide her pain and sadness by keeping a neutral face.

So he knew that much, at least.

“Why did Skywalker leave?” Finn decided to ask as Rey snapped her head at him. “If anyone knows, it’s him,” he pointed out. Maybe Han could tell them something that could clue them in to Rey’s past.

Han continued to look at the chart.

“He was training a new generation of Jedi. Wanted to bring back the Order with some needed changes. He was the only one left that could do it and he was doing pretty well. Then one of his apprentices betrayed him, destroyed the school, killed the students. Even Luke’s…” He paused, the memory obviously hurt too much. Then, Finn noticed he made a quick glance at Rey before he continued. “Well, it doesn’t matter much. Luke lost everything. He was heartbroken. We _all_ were. So he left.”

“Does anyone know what happened to him?” asked Rey. 

“There are rumors, stories,” said Han. “Most of what I hear is fake. A few conspiracy theories here and there that are kind of outrageous. No, the people that knew him best think he went to find the location of the first Jedi Temple.” He smiled to himself. “Crazy thing. I used to think that all of that - the Force, the Jedi, all of it – were just stories. But it’s true. All true.” He turned to Rey. “I think you know that better than anyone.”

Finn tried to see if anything changed about Han’s expression as he looked at Rey, and he did notice a change, but it was more of Han trying to puzzle her together than the reaction that Finn knew she was hoping to see from him. 

“I’m of the dark side,” she told him. “I am no Jedi.”

“Funny thing, the Force,” said Han. “Luke once told me it had a way of bringing people together under the most unusual circumstances.” He half-laughed to himself. “I guess he could say that with the way he and I met.”

“So can you help us get back to the Resistance?” asked Poe. “I know you’re not part of it, but Leia would appreciate any help she could get from you.”

With a deep sigh, Han waved his hand in a gesture that signaled Poe to drop the subject. “Yeah, I’ll get you there. This wouldn’t be the first time a droid got me involved with her.”

* * *

“So are Han and Leia not together anymore?” 

Rey turned her head to face Finn, who was lying next to her in the cramped space of the bunk. He had noticed that she looked tired and urged her to rest. She didn’t even argue with him and immediately went to search for the crew’s cabin. Then Han and Poe told him to do the same. Finn would have thought Poe would be more exhausted, considering all he had gone through in the last day, but Poe insisted that he wanted to stay up and help with the _Falcon_ for a bit; he wasn’t sure if he had a concussion or not and Han certainly wasn’t the best person to ask.

When he entered the crew’s bunks, he briefly thought of all the times he entered her quarters to report for duty and already found her in bed. At first, he thought she was already asleep and went to make a space for himself in one of the other bunks, only for Rey to turn around and grab his hand to urge him in the bunk with her.

“Maybe not,” Rey mumbled with a frown. “They lost a lot when Luke’s student betrayed him. Maybe it was too much for them.” She shook her head before moving closer to him, absent-mindedly playing with a stray thread on his shirt. 

“They lost a son that day,” Finn agreed. 

She didn’t say anything more. Her silence told Finn that she was hurting far more than she was trying to let on. He wasn’t going to press her further. It took her weeks to tell her about Jakku and open up about what happened when Snoke had her join him. She’d probably tell him everything in time, that was just how she was. Either that, or she hadn’t quite regained her memories the way she thought. 

“Are you afraid of me, Finn?” she broke the silence between them.

He startled. “Why would you think that?”

“Back on the _Ervana_ with the rathtar… I sensed it from you.”

With a sigh, Finn plopped down on his back and urged Rey closer. She ended up pillowing her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. If there wasn’t any more to talk about, Finn would have been content to fall asleep like this. He liked having Rey close to him as he slept now.

“It’s not that I’m afraid of _you,”_ he started. “More like, I’m afraid of what the dark side does to you. I’ve never seen you like that. Today in Niima when you threatened that guy and then seeing you with that rathtar, well, that was the first time I ever saw you using the dark side.”

“I was angry,” she confessed. “That merchant was just making everything more difficult and I was losing my patience. We didn’t have time to barter the way he was trying. The rathtar was different.”

“How so?”

“It was going to eat you, Finn. Did you forget that part?”

“How could I? Seriously thought I was going to die right there.”

“And that’s what I thought too. So I was angry thinking that I had just lost you and I was angry at it for trying to take you from me…” She paused. “At first, I used the Force to protect you because I needed you to stay alive, but then, even after you were safe, I just wanted to make the rathtar suffer.”

Finn did not like to hear this. Not at all. But he didn’t quite understand the Force and how it changed people. Come to think of it, he had never seen a real Jedi at work. Did the dark side force others to behave violently or was that completely under the free will of the person in question?

“And the dark side makes you do that?”

Rey shook her head. “It urges you, but you don’t have to give in.” Then with a displeasured smile, she thought out loud, “If Snoke could see me then, he’d have been proud. That’s exactly how he wanted to behave.”

Looking down at her, he saw that she looked a little disappointed in herself. How many times had she said that she did not want to play Snoke’s games or follow his orders blindly? In a way, it must have felt like that to her.

“We should sleep,” he told her. “I don’t know how long it’ll be until we get to the Resistance.”

She nodded and didn’t say anything more. Soon, her breathing evened out and Finn knew she had fallen asleep. For a brief moment, his heart sped as he wondered if he would be able to sleep at all after a day like this, but he found that his exhaustion was actually winning out. Unable to keep his eyes open any longer, he followed her lead and sleep took over.


	3. Chapter 3

After another couple of hours traveling through lightspeed, Han announced that they had finally reached their destination. Everyone on board had started to grow restless for different reasons and the green of D’Qar was a welcomed sight.

Poe and BB-8 had all but sprinted down the lowered ramp of the _Falcon_ the moment they touched ground, welcomed by the cheers of curious onlookers that had gathered around the freighter. Chewbacca had followed behind them to get a better look around the Resistance base. But the remaining three all held back, taking their time to gather their thoughts before facing General Organa and the rest of the Resistance.

But Rey gazed at the ramp, hesitant to make the first step down.

“Ready?” asked Finn as he and Rey stood at the top of the ramp.

“Not really.”

Well, Finn wasn’t quite ready for this either, but Rey had a completely different reason to feel nervous. He took her hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze.

“It’ll be alright,” he promised. “And later we can decide what we want to do from here.”

Rey nodded. “Making a break for the Outer Rim and making a home with you sounds pretty nice right now.”

He liked the idea too, but he knew that Rey was stalling.

“C’mon.”

The short trip down the ramp felt like it took an eternity. She may have abandoned her mask on the _Falcon,_ but Rey still looked pretty threatening with her saber spear. Finn wondered if she should have brought it at all, thinking that its presence would feel threatening to the Resistance. Rey had insisted on bringing it. She didn’t trust any of these people; if worst came to worse, well, she wanted to have something to defend herself with. Maybe it would even keep people from thinking about trying anything.

In any case, Finn knew those gasps weren’t over him. In Poe’s old jacket, Finn thought that he looked pretty average, or at least fit in well enough to blend in. No, those gasps and stares were for Rey. Even without her mask, her clothing, weapon, and demeanor gave away that she was a fighter of some kind and probably very dangerous. He noticed a few people back away, trying to distance themselves from her.

This was the first time he got to take the Resistance in and he found that they were a rather colorful bunch. Their uniforms in particular stood out to him, color-coded based on each person’s role and decorated according to rank. Olive greens, bright oranges and yellows, tans and blues were a stark contrast of the dull black, gray, and white color scheme that the First Order favored. Even when navy and burgundy had been tossed into the mix, the shades had always been dark and muted. Vibrancy had no place with them.

Then he noticed the variety of species on the base. Alien species weren’t strangers to the First Order, but they had been rare considering the human favoritism that they held. Humanoids had been welcomed with open arms into the ranks, but certain species had never set foot on a First Order fleet. The Resistance seemed to be made of every species under the sun, though he did notice that humans still made a majority. He wondered how many of them had been from worlds that the First Order had occupied. Even he didn’t know the exact number of places that they had power over.

But he noticed that only one person in particular had held Rey’s attention. As she made her way through the crowd, the Resistance members moved to let her get to the freighter with ease. The woman was short in statue, but commandeering all the same. 

Even if Leia Organa didn’t turn out to be Rey’s aunt, at least Finn wouldn’t be lying to say he saw a resemblance between the two. He had seen the old footage of a young Princess of Alderaan attending Imperial events and understood why so many young men of that time found her to be the most eligible bachelorette on the market. And for many, it would have been a shock that a princess that had been so elegant in her words and generous in her aid had ended up a face of the Rebellion.

Finn knew that Organa was a force to be reckoned with, reminding him so much of another woman he knew and loved.

But Organa was not looking at either of them, nor was she watching Poe Dameron reunite with his fellow pilots. She was staring in the direction of the _Millennium Falcon,_ regarding her husband as he finally decided to take his first steps down the ramp.

But their moment was quickly ruined.

“Beebee-ate! I’m here to assist you in translating- Oh! Goodness! Han Solo!”

Han groaned as his face fell into a frown. 

“It is I! See-Threepio! You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm…” The gold protocol droid held up one of his limbs, showing off a modification to his appendage that did not match the rest of him. Then, the droid turned around to Leia Organa. “Look who it is! Han-"

“Threepio,” General Organa warned.

“Oh. Um. Sorry, Princess- I mean, _General.”_ Awkwardly, the protocol droid looked around until he spotted BB-8 again. “Come on,” he told the other droid. “We need to settle on a procedure for debriefing.”

Rey, Finn, and Chewbacca watched this exchange with amusement. There was another example of personality in droids that the New Republic seemed to favor. Finn found the protocol droid a little charming, even if awkward. It seemed good natured enough.

Han and Leia exchanged a few words that neither Finn nor Rey could here at their distance. Chewbacca then stepped forward to bring Leia into his massive arms for a furry hug. He then let go and went back into the _Falcon._

Finally, General Organa acknowledged the two strangers. Her gaze fell to Rey and it changed from the calm and joyful demeanor that she had while reunited with her husband and Wookie friend to something else. It was almost a mix of shock, disbelief, awe, and sorrow, like she couldn’t decide to cry or shout in elation or both.

“I think we need to have a talk,” she said.

* * *

Finn would admit that he was impressed with the Resistance and how they operated. For a group so small and with an obvious strain on their purse strings, they seemed to know what they were doing. The hangars looked fully operational and the small troupe of recruits that he saw doing training routines seemed to be just as orderly and respondent as any First Order squad.

But when General Organa led him and Rey into a small room that looked like it could have once been a storage unit, he grew nervous. Rey had told him that they had been promised fair treatment, but years of conditioning taught him to fear the enemy and understand that anyone at any time could break a promise when it suited them the most.

It was some relief to him when he realized that Rey had not been asked to remove her saber spear nor had anyone tried to forcefully take it from her. They probably weren’t being led here to be interrogated then.

Actually, the room looked as if it had been turned into some sort of private office. In the center of the small room sat an old (though plainly cheap) desk and quite possibly the most comfortable looking chair that Finn had seen so far on the base. On the desk sat a few monitors and a comm system that he guessed could be patched through to the entire base when needed.

General Organa pulled apart two chairs that had been neatly stacked in a corner and moved them for Finn and Rey to sit in. 

“It’s been a long journey for you,” she observed. “Did my wayward husband actually think to feed any of you?”

“Well…” Finn began, feeling awkward about broaching the topic of food.

“There wasn’t much on the _Falcon,”_ Rey admitted. “Just some old ration cubes.”

Organa groaned, pressing her hand over her eyes. “That’s what I thought.” She pressed a link on the comm and asked someone to bring up a plate of finger food, as she called it. While she thought of it, she asked whoever was on the other line to check on Poe and make sure he got a full meal after the medbay checked him over.

Then her expression turned serious.

“I want to thank you,” she told them. “For bringing Poe back.”

Rey answered her. “I will admit that when I got your message, it was almost too late.”

A grimace appeared on Organa’s face.

“I guess you made good on your end,” said the general. “So I’ll make good on mine. As of this moment, you are under my protection and that of the Resistance. You have my full attention.”

Finn looked at Rey before deciding to start speaking. He wanted to give her a chance to talk first if she felt a need to. Suddenly, she seemed to lack confidence in herself. 

“Well, the thing is, we were hoping that you could help us.”

This led to him explaining their situation, with Rey interjecting thoughts here and there. The entire time, General Organa did not interrupt them and only asked questions when Finn took a break from speaking.

When he finished his story, the general had an awed look on her face. “That was an incredibly brave thing you did back there, Finn,” she told him. “And you, Rey... Is there a last name?"

“Actually, I was hoping you could help me with that.”

The general nodded before she glanced at Finn, who was trying one of the small sandwiches that had been brought for them to eat. “I know you two probably don’t want to be separated and I understand if you don’t, but Finn, I want to confirm you two are who you say you are before proceeding.”

“And how are we going to do that?” asked Finn.

“We have someone in our captivity; someone that volunteered himself up for us. I believe you are probably at least acquainted with him,” she hinted. “He’ll be able to confirm your identity and that will be good enough for me.”

That didn’t make a ton of sense to him, but he realized that Organa might be looking for a way to convince him to leave for a while so that she could talk to Rey alone. She could have just asked. No, it was true that he didn’t like to be separated from Rey while they were on unfamiliar territory, but he understood why he might be asked to leave. 

“Alright,” Finn sighed and stood up. 

Calling in a droid to help him find his way, Organa looked to Rey, who did not look so sure about the situation herself. “He won’t be out of your sight for long, I promise. But there’s a few things I want to ask you in private.”

Rey’s eyebrow arched. “Alright,” she agreed. “For a short time.”

* * *

The droid led Finn down into a bunker where it looked like a series of rooms had been made. He wondered what the base had been before the Resistance made use of it; he doubted that they could have built this entire facility on their budget alone. Quickly thinking back to the academic part of his training, he found he could not recall anything about D’Qar or any of its industries. The Resistance made a good choice of location then. Any place that hadn’t been signaled out as an important world to the First Order was just about as safe as it could get.

Briefly, he wondered if this bunker was used to house the volunteers when they weren’t on duty. So far, he had no indication of where any sort of residential hall had been placed based on his observations alone. But it would be odd to house volunteers along with any captive – voluntary or not – in the same area.

A woman in an orange pilot’s flight suit stood outside the door. The jacket had been unzipped from her torso and tied around her waist. Under her suit was a beige tank top that must have been more bearable to wear than the heavy material. Her hair was black and fine in texture, but looked a little frizzy, like she had just taken off a helmet.

“You’re Finn, right?” she asked, holding her hand out for him to shake. “Poe’s already told half the base about you. I’m Jessika Pava. Part of Poe’s squad.”

He was a little taken aback. Poe was talking about him? He would have thought that Poe would have been chatty about Rey, but perhaps he filled everyone in on the entire escape. Finn didn’t think he was that remarkable, except that he was a defected stormtrooper. Besides getting Poe out, he hadn’t done much else.

Pava smiled. “Oh, I won’t embarrass you more. Promise.” She turned to the door she was stationed beside. “I was asked to oversee this meeting. Really, I’m just there to act as a witness to confirm you are who you say you are. After what Poe’s told me, I don’t doubt you.”

“But who’s going to be able to confirm me?” Finn was a little confused. Did the Resistance somehow get a hold of the First Order’s data files on all the listed stormtroopers? Surely a breach like that would not have gone unnoticed and not create less than chaos.

Holding a key card up to a reader, the door slid open, revealing a humbly furnished room.

And, sitting at a small table that reminded Finn of the one in Rey’s old quarters, was a man quietly sipping at a mug of caf. Finn glanced at him for a few moments, looking at his tanned skin flecked with freckles and sun spots and his neatly cut black hair. Like Finn, he was only wearing the black underclothes of a stormtrooper, but Finn found no armor to speak of.

…Until he spotted a crimson red helmet sitting on a small shelf next to the bed.

“Cardinal?” he gasped. All this time, everyone had assumed he was on sick leave but here he was, in the captivity of the enemy.

His old instructor also scanned Finn’s appearance in this time. He squinted. “I know the call signs of every cadet that has ever been in my care,” he said, “but as they grow and are sent off to Phasma, I begin to lose track of them. But I think I might remember you. You are of the FN cadets, right?”

“FN-2187,” Finn replied. “But I don’t go by that anymore.”

“Ah,” Cardinal exclaimed in recognition and sat down his mug. “Yes, one of our best and brightest of that pool.” He laughed. “And yet, here you are, knocking on the enemy’s door.”

Interrupting, Pava held up a datapad. “Can I get you to sign this? A memo to say that you verify this person to be a former stormtooper. For documentation purposes,” she added. She looked a little uncomfortable to be doing this job.

Cardinal waved her over to him and she placed the datapad in front of him. 

“The First Order is _my_ enemy,” hissed Finn as Cardinal created a signature on the datapad with a stylus.

“They are as long as Phasma and that Armitage Hux are in charge,” he replied, seeming to ignore what Finn had just said. “They may be part of the First Order, but they do not have its interest at heart.”

That bit got Finn's attention. It eerily reminded him of Rey’s warnings of Phasma back when they first met. Puzzled, he asked, “So did you leave on you own accord or not?”

“I voluntarily left and vowed to return once I had a solution to one of the First Order’s biggest problems. The Resistance might even be able to help me there. You see, I learned what Phasma and Hux were up to, how Phasma got involved with the Order and how Hux got rid of his father. And then I got a brilliant idea to call Phasma out and found myself no longer welcome in the fleet. Phasma saw to that.”

He slowly lifted part of his shirt up, revealing a large bandage across his abdomen. “Got me with a _knife._ Primitive. I guess some people can never abandon their roots.”

Finn winced. “I guess that was from a long time ago, then?” he guessed, judging by how large the wound might be under that bandage. If he took a knife there, it probably had healed up a bit, meaning that it had been a serious injury. 

He wouldn’t expect less from Phasma.

Nodding, Cardinal let his shirt fall again. “Did the First Order say anything about my disappearance?” he asked. “Surely some of you must have noticed.”

“We cadets did, at least,” Finn told him. “The First Order never made a formal announcement. All the cadets assumed that you were ill or something.”

Cardinal leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. “Sounds about right,” he agreed. “I doubt the First Order wants to make it known that their cadet program overseer defected.” He hummed. “I bet they’re trying to cover _your_ defection, ‘trooper.”

 _“Finn-"_ he corrected. “I go by Finn now.”

“What’s your story, then?”

And for the second time that day, Finn found himself repeating the tale of how he met Rey and how together they plotted their escape. Cardinal frowned at quite a few details; unlike General Organa, he did not look pleased at all by Finn’s thoughts about the First Order. Finn assumed that this was because Cardinal ran the cadet program and Finn had proven his system was not without flaws.

Still, he wasn’t quite sure what to think of Cardinal anymore. It was odd to think that he would willingly give himself to the Resistance – a group that had a goal of defeating the First Order – with the intention of later going back to join his old allegiance, assuming anything would be left. Maybe he was also on the verge of completely abandoning the cause but struggled to let go of everything he had worked towards and believed for so long. A common enemy sometimes united the strangest of friends.

“Well,” Cardinal responded when Finn finished. “You’re quite the special circumstance.”

“What do you mean?” Finn asked, taken a little aback.

A grin, cheeky almost, widened across Cardinal’s face. “Not many people defect along with a Knight of Ren. I bet the First Order is absolutely _panicking_ right now. Most soldiers just try to make a run for it. Try to get to the closest planet in the Outer Rim or something. Usually they don’t get far.”

Finn didn’t like the sound of that. Also, he realized that the Outer Rim had been a part of his and Rey’s plan and this information implied that the First Order had easily tracked their defectors there. Taking this into account, he realized he’d need to discuss this with Rey and pitch the idea to look elsewhere, maybe a Mid Rim world would be a safer bet.

And then, Cardinal looked directly at him. “The only reason you made it this far, traitor, is because of her. And soon, she’ll tire of you and leave you. All the Knights and officers that took a special liking to cadets do. When you’ve served your purpose, she’ll be gone, if she sticks around that long.” He glared at Finn.

“Rey’s not-"

“Like that?” he interrupted. “Trust me, cadet. They all are.”

Now, Finn was angry and needed to leave this room before he did something drastic. He looked over to Pava, who was watching this exchange with interest. “Now that I’ve been _verified,”_ he said a little darkly, “can I go back to General Organa and my friend?”

Pava bit her lip. “She hasn’t given permission yet,” she said. “I think she wants to talk to your friend alone for a while.” She thought for a moment. “But I can take you to another place to wait. Get you a drink or something.”

Standing up, he headed over to the door. “Sounds fine,” he said. He wasn’t angry about waiting, especially if that meant that Rey could have some time to get an explanation – be verified in her own way – or at least get some closure. She deserved at least that.

He glanced at Cardinal one last time, still allowing his mind to try to work everything out about what this man was up to.

* * *

Alone, Rey had no idea where she should begin.

She had been waiting for this moment for weeks, rehearsing what she would say to this woman and what questions she would ask in her head. But now, looking at Leia Organa in the face, Rey found that her mind suddenly went blank. 

But General Organa started for her.

“If I had known, I would have fought harder to get you back.”

And that was the best starting point that Rey could have been given.

“So you think I’m-"

Leia nodded with a small and genuine smile. “I know it. Even without the Force, I’d know my niece anywhere.” But then her brows furrowed and the skin around her forehead wrinkled. “But what I don’t understand is how or why.”

Not knowing how much she was ready to share, or how much she was willing to share, Rey hung her head. “Snoke changed my memories. The real ones are still here,” she tapped at her skull. “I think. I only just started to realize this a few weeks ago.” She paused before looking up at her aunt in the eyes. “He might have done that to hide me in the Force. Or to change what I look like to it. I’m not sure how that works.”

“That would explain a lot,” Leia said thoughtfully.

“Luke Skywalker is my father, right?” She knew if the person in front of her was her aunt, then this was going to be true, but she wanted to hear this from someone else.

The general’s eyes was full of shock and disbelief. Rey worried for a moment that this woman would retract her confirmation of being related to her, for what daughter could forget her own father who must have loved her?

General Organa’s eyes went soft, even a little sad. She sighed. “Yes, Rey. Luke is your father.” She looked her niece over again, with fondness. 

Oddly, Rey’s reaction also had not been at all what she was expecting. She thought she would be overjoyed, maybe even stricken with sadness or grief over the life she had lost five years ago. Instead, her mind felt numb.

“And do you know where he is?” she asked. Han claimed that no one knew, but maybe Leia, being Luke’s sister and all, was hiding something from everyone else.

The reaction of her aunt’s face made her look like she was deep in thought, and, at the center of all her thoughts, she felt regret. Rey could feel its heavy presence in the Force. It made the air in the room feel thick.

“I do not,” she confessed. “I wish I did.”

“Why did he leave?” Rey asked again. “Surely, you know that much.” 

There was a pause while Leia collected her thoughts. She looked hurt as she made her explanation.

“We looked for you. _Both_ of you,” she began. “When Luke told me what happened that night, I couldn’t believe it. Han and I went straight to the school – what remained of it – and we searched the grounds for signs of you. No body was found but the same thing could be said about so many of the students. Luke told me you were last seen in the forest and well, bodies were found over the next weeks in it, but never yours.”

“So despite that, you assumed I was dead?”

“Luke kept trying to find you in the Force, but he couldn’t.” Tears were beginning to well in Leia’s eyes. “After weeks of looking, he finally allowed himself to believe that you were gone. Then he just… left. No word. Nothing. He was just gone one day.”

“Do you know where he went?” Rey pressed further. “Han said-"

“Han believed that Luke went off to die somewhere,” Leia blurted out.

 _That_ took Rey aback. It was a lot to take in, at any rate. Just a few weeks ago, she thought she had been orphaned. Abandoned. Now, she was rediscovering a family that she still wasn’t quite sure was really hers. Sure, Leia confirmed it, but Rey’s mind still felt hazy on the best of days. There were only a few memories that she could confirm as real.

“…And do you think it’s true?” She wasn’t sure how she would react to spend all this time planning only to find out that her father was dead. Even if she couldn’t remember much, Rey could recall the tenderness of her father’s love. She wanted that back more than anything.

Leia sighed. “No,” she said honestly. “I don’t know where Luke left but I do know why.” She stood up from her seat. “We’ve been looking for a way to find him for a long time. Thanks to you and your friend, we might finally be able to find him.”

And Rey then found the courage to tell her aunt everything that had happened to her since the night the school was destroyed. When she got to the part about how her cousin kidnapped her and stood by as Snoke tortured her, perhaps even taking a part of it himself, Leia’s eye’s hardened as she stared at the wall behind Rey in almost a numb state.

When she finished, Rey followed to stand with her aunt, who beckoned her into an embrace. There might have been a big height difference, but this hug meant more to Rey than she could ever convey. 

Pushing away, Leia held herself at a distance to look her niece over. “I do see a lot of Luke in your face,” she observed. “He will be proud of you.”

For a reason that eluded her, Rey said, “I’m sorry about Ben.”

Leia walked her out. C-3PO was waiting outside at the door. “No, Rey,” she corrected. _“I’m_ sorry.” She looked over at the old protocol droid. “Help Rey find her friend. Then get them to the mess hall and try to find a place for them to sleep. Preferably private quarters.”

Before the door shut behind her, Rey thought she heard a soft sob on the other side. An ache tore at her heart and she wanted nothing more to be with Finn now.

She would speak with her aunt again later.

* * *

It wasn’t until D’Qar transitioned into night when most of the day staff went into the barracks to sleep and the base grew quiet that Leia ventured up to the _Millennium Falcon_ to speak to her husband. When Rey first contacted the Resistance, Leia had been skeptical and wondered if this was a trap set by the First Order to get an assassin close to her. Like Luke, she had truly believed that her niece had been dead for the last five years, slain by her own son. They held a memorial for their children, claiming both to be dead. To Leia’s heart, her son was dead. Replaced by an evil that was more monster than man.

For years, she and Han would hold a vigil each anniversary of that day to remember the bright life that their niece had been and to remember the life before their son had destroyed it. But Han never stayed more than a few days. Just as the pain made Leia throw herself into her work for the Resistance with more dedication than ever before, Han’s pain brought him to wandering space in search of the _Millennium Falcon._

There had been a time that Leia wondered if Han had left to try to find Luke himself, or maybe he left simply because he couldn't face the pain anymore. The Resistance had intel of the First Order and their mysterious Supreme Leader but it had been known too late for her to stop Snoke from convincing her son from giving in to the dark side. 

Then Rey showed up alive, but obviously broken with few memories to her name. She was no longer the bubbly teen that Leia remembered, in fact, she didn’t resemble the old Rey at all. In tow, she had her defector friend, whom Leia suspected was more than a friend to Rey, Leia’s best pilot, a droid carrying a map to Luke, one of her oldest friends, and the husband that she hadn’t seen in years. Leia hated how people said the Force worked in mysterious ways. If anything, her experience with destiny was that it basically threw itself in her face just to spite her.

She knew that Rey was who she said she was the moment Leia got a glimpse of her. Still young, her face still had the youthfulness that she carried years before but there was a weariness in her eyes. The haunted look there told Leia that she had seen too many things that someone her age should never experience.

When Rey told her what Ben had done to her, that her mind was so blurred and changed that she no longer had recognized her cousin or remembered her childhood, Leia felt like she was going through the grieving process all over again. No one knew what Ben had done that night. Under her decision, Leia had hidden the betrayal under the lie that her son had also been killed. Cowardly as it was, she could not face the anger and tears of the parents of the children that her son had slain.

She boarded the _Falcon_ for the first time in years. Looking around, she was impressed of how well the old bird was still holding up, though the inside was still trashed and a chaotic mess. Part of her brain told her that any moment, she would turn the corner of the corridor and find her husband and her toddler son, and maybe even her brother, sitting around that old holochess table and realize that everything that had just happened had been a terrible dream.

Instead, she only found Han sitting slumped against the booth.

“So it’s her, huh?” he asked, not looking up at his wife.

Sliding in next to him, Leia said, “I will admit, I didn’t believe it at first. But yes, it’s her.”

With a gruffed signed, Han shook his head. “When I first saw her, I couldn’t believe it. I said to myself, ‘That’s Luke’s girl.’ But then I thought that I was just setting myself up for disappointment. There was no way that she was my niece.”

“You didn’t want to break your heart again.” Placing her hand against his thigh, Leia tried to show him that he understood.

Silence passed between them. Both of them had the same thing on their minds, but neither wanted to bring the subject up first.

Finally, it was Han to broach it.

“Our son?” he asked.

She decided that she couldn’t hide it from him. Both of them had once hoped – as many parents would have – that somehow their son would return to them. Leia knew that it was foolish to think that and a part of her often reminded herself of what would happen to Ben if he returned. He would have to answer for all of his crimes, of course. He had murdered countless at this point.

So she told Han of everything that Rey had told her and Han held her hand as she tried to get through the part about Rey’s kidnapping and the torture she went through as their son stood by and watched. The worst parts were the ones where her son had taken part of Rey’s punishments. Starving her. Taunting her. Hurting her. 

Visibly paled, Han went quiet after Leia finished, taking in everything. He was obviously horrified.

“If I ever see him again, I’ll wring his neck myself.”

“Get in line,” snarked Leia. 

Laughter broke the tension between them, though they were shocked over the reason why they were laughing in the first place. Perhaps, Leia mused, the stress and pain of the situation was trying to diffuse itself through morbid jokes.

“The map’s not complete,” Han sighed as he calmed himself down.

“Map?”

“The one that’s supposed to lead to Luke.”

Leia sighed, mirroring her husband. “We’ll have our best cartographers look at it,” she began. “Maybe they can pinpoint a region-"

“Leia, I looked at the map myself,” warned Han. “The chunk that’s missing is too big. Multiple systems, in fact.”

And if Han couldn’t figure it out, she’d be hard pressed to find someone that could. Cartographers had their education, but Han had experience. He knew some of the darkest regions of the galaxy where even Leia had never dared to go in her youth. 

But still…

“We’ve got to find Luke,” Han’s voice was almost a plea, a reaction she rarely saw out of him. “We’ve got to find him and fix this mess and-"

“And we will,” Leia promised. “But first we’ve got a cold war on our hands and a niece and her friend that needs us. Even if Luke isn’t here, those things come first.”

* * *

“Oh,” Rey moaned. “This is _soooo_ good.”

“Really good,” Finn hummed.

They took large bites out of their burgers while the rest of the beings in the mess hall watch on, amazed that their special guests decided to eat with them and scandalized by their lack of manners. Rey had sauce all over her face and Finn kept having to adjust the bun on his burger to keep its contents from falling out.

“Woah, slow down you two. Don’t choke,” warned a wide-eyed Poe.

“Poe, what is this?” asked Finn. “Nothing on the base was this fresh!”

Squinting over to the written menu on the far end of the room, Poe replied, “Bantha? I think General Organa requested we eat the frozen meat. It stays fresh that way. Special for the two of you.”

“I want to eat this every day!” exclaimed Rey.

“Maybe some variety?” whispered Jess, who decided to join them.

They had only been on base for a few days, but Finn and Rey were managing to adapt to life with the Resistance. The food was far better (albeit, maybe not as healthy) as what was served by the First Order. They were allowed a room together and while they might have gotten a few curious glances, no one questioned Finn and Rey’s relationship or showed signs of disapproval. Poe even gave Rey a tour of the hangar and Finn had been shown the artillery supply to quench his curiosity.

But while Rey seemed a lot happier than before, Finn was not feeling the same sort of elation. He and Rey had yet to really talk about where to go now that she had confirmed her family. At first, he was willing to be patient. This had been about Rey, after all, and giving her the chance to reconnect with her family. He didn’t have a problem with that. But the Resistance was obviously prepping for a war with the First Order and well, he really didn’t want to get involved. They were obviously outnumbered in population and fire power. If they stuck around when the inevitable happened, the Knights of Ren might come looking for him and Rey. 

Luke Skywalker hadn’t been found yet and Finn wondered what Rey would do when his location was finally revealed. He wouldn’t blame her for wanting to rush off to find her father; Finn would even be willing to join her, but doubt plagued him. Cardinal’s words echoed in his head. If Rey were to reunite with her entire family, why in the galaxy would she even consider running off to the Mid Rim with Finn (he had revised his original plan)?

“What’s wrong?” Rey asked with a frown.

He shook himself out of his thoughts. “Nothing,” he assured her. “Just thinking.”

She laughed. “Thinking, hmm? What about?”

“Something we really need to discuss in private.”

Narrowing her eyes, Rey stood up to excuse herself, taking the tray to the trash and laying it out for the droids to collect later. Finn followed her until they got into the private quarters that General Organa had given them.

“Okay. We’re alone,” she told him as she went to sit on the bed. “What’s wrong?”

He sat next to her, the added weight causing the bed to slump in the middle. The Resistance had treated them well, but it didn’t have the funds to give their guests luxury.

“I just- it’s not about you or your family. It’s more that I worry that staying here might put us in a middle of a war.”

Her eyes softened. “Oh, Finn. I understand. I don’t want that either.”

“I wanted to talk to you about where we should go from here,” he told her. “The Outer Rim might not be safe after all.” He thought back to what Cardinal had said. “I was wondering if maybe you could ask General Organa about helping us find a place elsewhere. She’d probably know of a safe place.”

Rey pushed her head against his shoulder, leaning her weight against him. “I was hoping they’d find something to help me find my father,” she admitted. “But they aren’t any closer to finding the last piece of the map than they were a few days ago. No leads.”

“If we get word that they’ve found him, I promise we’ll come straight back.” Finn would never take that away from her, not when he wanted the same thing for himself and knew how important to her it was. 

She nodded. “Okay,” she relented. “I’ll ask.”

“Thank you.” He placed a kiss against her forehead. “I mean it.”

“I know.”

Turning to face him, Rey leaned in and placed a kiss on his lips. It was short and chaste, but warm and full of promise.

Before she pulled away, Finn placed his hands against her cheeks and pulled her back in. He wasn’t quite done with kissing her yet and for some reason, this time there was a feeling of urgency their kissing. They had kissed like this before, times where they took their time exploring one another, but as Rey adjusted herself so that she was sitting in his lap and opening her mouth to him, Finn realized that their relationship was both changing and solidifying. 

Cardinal was wrong. Rey wasn’t going to leave him for her family. Finn was as much as her family as she was to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because of the holidays, I realized that I needed to split a chapter into two again so that I could make my editing schedule work. So, like the last installment, this fic has been changed to have six chapters instead of five.
> 
> I always thought that the films could have done a little more to express the complex nature of Han and Leia wanting their son back, despite knowing that he's done horrendous things. There are a lot of studies out there about parents whose children have grown up to become murderers/terrorists and I wanted to reflect some of what I have learned about this topic in this story.


	4. Chapter 4

The streaks of light in the sky stopped everyone on the base in their tracks as they lifted their heads to look up. A few people murmured that a star must have gone nova, but the lights were too far away from D’Qar to really tell. No one really knew. In any case, it was too far to really be a concern. Probably.

When Finn and Rey looked up to see what everyone was looking at, their faces dropped at the same time and they turned their heads in unison to look at each other.

“They’ve done it?” whispered Finn.

“The reports said it was ready,” answered Rey, grimly.

"Have you told Leia?"

"I haven't. I-I was so happy to be away from the First Order that I forgot about it." 

Finn turned around and headed back towards the hangars. “They’ve targeted the New Republic.” He seemed almost on auto-pilot as Rey followed him. There wasn’t much else on his mind now. He needed to tell someone; just do… _something._

Leia emerged from the open area designated to be for operations use. She looked up at the sky with a frown, then looked at the approaching former First Order members. She swayed on spot, looking as if she were about to be sick.

“You two need to come with me.”

* * *

The highest in command were gathered around a single station in Control. Lights flashed in quick, urgent intervals, letting everyone know that something had happened and everyone needed to listen.

“The Republic command – the entire Hosnian system – it’s gone,” said a man who looked like he held some high position. “All gone.” He looked like he couldn’t believe what he just said.

Everyone in the chamber was silent. They were too stunned, fearful, numb, to say anything, yet they also knew that this wasn’t the work of a natural disaster. Certainly those lights were no meteor strike. That wouldn’t cause the destruction of an entire system.

Which meant…

“How is it possible?” asked C-3PO. “There is no record of any weapon capable of such destruction.”

Rey and Finn didn’t need to glance around to know that all eyes were on them.

“It’s called Starkiller Base,” Rey began. “And it’s the biggest weapon that the galaxy has ever seen.”

Leaning against a console for support, Leia tried to steady herself.

“General,” said C-3PO, “Are you alright?”

She took a deep breath. “A great disturbance in the Force. Deaths and passings.” Then she walked away with her head hung.

Rey watched her aunt and her heart filled with a tightness that she associated with sorrow. She recalled a story she had heard long ago of a lost world called Alderaan and how the Empire destroyed it with the Death Star. It killed millions and those that were sensitive to the Force had felt the pain and fear of all those that had died. Her aunt was one of the few surviving Alderaanians left in the galaxy. Only those that had been off-world when the Death Star fired upon it were lucky enough to survive.

She wondered why she was not affected the way Leia was. Did the dark side have something to do with this? It seemed to have a way to numb her from feeling any emotion other than her own. Or maybe that was her own conditioning at work… Like Finn, she had been taught to kill. It wouldn’t do to have heightened sensitivity to the death and pain of others.

Quickly, she wrote down a set of coordinates and slid them over to a graying man that she knew to be Admiral Statura. Rey did not have a diagram with her of Starkiller but she could at least offer the Resistance a location for them to look.

He nodded. “I’ll send a reconnaissance ship immediately.”

* * *

They waited for hours before Captain Wexley returned with the information that the Resistance needed. In the meantime, Finn and Rey helped where they could, though it felt awkward to them. They had only been here for a day and didn’t actually have job duties to fulfill. Honestly, they just moved supplies when they were asked to just so they felt like they were being of help.

Poe called them when another meeting was getting ready to start. In the conference room, Finn recognized a few faces from base, but even a few from his days learning Imperial history. Admiral Ackbar to name one. He actually was surprised that Ackbar was still alive.

General Organa removed herself from the group that she had been conversing with nonstop since the Starkiller weapon was fired. “Just the people I need,” she said.

“Finn could probably tell you more than I could,” Rey admitted. “I only glanced at a few reports. He’s actually worked on it.”

A few eyebrows had been raised.

“You worked on the weapon?” asked Ackbar.

“No, sir,” Finn corrected. “I was just a stormtrooper fresh into the ranks. But I had some tech training and everyone knows about the overall functions of the base. The science is beyond me, but I can tell you all I know.”

Poe grinned. “Didn’t think any ‘troopers would dare to defect, so no point in hiding it, huh?”

Rey matched his grin. She watched Finn with pride in her eyes.

“We’re desperate,” said Leia, “for anything you can tell us. We didn’t even know that such a weapon existed.”

“I’ll tell you all I can,” Finn agreed. 

Admiral Ackbar approached Finn. “Come we me, young man. I have many questions to ask you.”

Rey was then left standing with Poe and Leia. She turned to them. “Had I known, I might have just offered you the information when I first contacted you.”

Leia pursed her lip and glanced at the man standing next to her. “You got Dameron out for us. We’re grateful to you two.”

“Me most of all,” Poe laughed.

Han had entered the room, followed by C-3PO and BB-8. Standing along the circular table in the center of the conference room, he waited patiently. Rey decided to stand by him.

“Another Death Star, huh?” He looked grim.

She nodded. “That was the idea.”

“We never learn from our past.” 

BB-8 opened one of his compartments and offered up a small device to C-3PO, who inserted it into a slot into the nearby projector. 

An enlarged version of the map that had been recovered on Jakku was shown. Nothing looked new to Rey, but it was such a large map that she wasn’t sure if she’d notice a difference.

“General,” C-3PO began. “I have already completed an analysis. I will give you a report once I compare the information we have available in our databases. However, I have concluded that this map contains insufficient data for us to make a match to any system in our records…”

“Told you,” Han said with a grin that wasn’t a happy one.

Leia rolled her eyes, but didn’t answer him.

Rey spoke up this time. “Does that mean we might never…?” She didn’t finish. She looked between her aunt and uncle, hoping that one of them would have an idea on how to find her father. It was true that she still did not have the memories she should, but the familiarity of them and how she hoped they would have all the answers told her that she hadn’t quite forgotten them. 

And she wanted to see her father again. At least once.

“What a fool I was to think we could just find Luke this easily,” Leia mumbled.

Han warned, “Leia…”

“Don’t do that,” she snapped.

“Do what?”

“Be nice to me.” Her voice was flat. Then, after glancing once more at the map, she walked off in a defeated huff.

…Well, that might have explained where Rey got a particular behavior quirk of hers.

Rey didn’t know what to do. A part of her wanted to go back to the private quarters she was given and curl up in bed. Another part of her wanted to cry out of both frustration and fear, walking away the way her aunt just had. Then, oddly, there was another part of her telling her not to give up hope just yet.

“Don’t worry, kid,” said Han. “Your aunt doesn’t give up that easily.”

“But what if we don’t find him?” she blurted out before she could stop herself. Her voice wavered; she thought she sounded like a scared child and mentally chided herself for it. 

Han paused and looked at her before running a hand bewilderingly through his graying hair. “We’ll find him,” he said it like he was intending to make it a promise, but even he didn’t seem confident. “We found you again. Or maybe you found us…” He grinned. “I’ll go talk with her.”

He patted her on the shoulder before her followed Leia out to the hallway.

* * *

When Finn was done, he went back to the main area of the conference room and stood next to Rey. She was alone now and she looked upset. He wanted to talk to her, but he had no idea if this was the right place or the right time, so instead, he stood next to her, pushing his side into hers so that they remained close.

When Han Solo and Leia Organa returned to the room, everyone stood around a new map in the center of the room. It was a layout of a familiar icy planet that up until now, no one had ever paid any attention to.

“This is a scan that Captain Wexley made. Everything that Finn has told us has been confirmed,” Poe announced.

“It’s some kind of hyperspace weapon built into the planet themselves,” Wexley further detailed. “Somehow, it can fire across interstellar distances in real-time. Even with my technical training, I’m not sure how that’s possible.”

“I’m not sure either,” Finn added. “On the base, we called it sub-hyperspace but the amount of energy to do that is…” he trailed off. “Well, I don’t actually know.”

“In the reports I saw,” Rey interjected, “there were a lot of zeroes after the primary number.” She grinned, knowing that was the least bit helpful.

“It’s another Death Star,” said one of the veteran officers in the back of the room. in the corner of his vision, Finn noticed Han Solo rolling his eyes.

This time, Poe jumped in. “I wish that were the case, but in comparison to what we got in our surveys and what Finn has told us, it’s far bigger than the Death Star.” 

To illustrate this point, Poe flipped a switch and the three-dimensional image from the projector was shown side by side with the original Death Star. The Starkiller weapon was far bigger than anything the Empire had ever made, in fact, it was at least ten times bigger.

General Organa studied the image with a puzzled look on her face. “How can they power something of that size?” she asked Finn.

Finn froze for a moment. Sure, he knew bits and pieces of information from what he heard around the base, but he was no scientist. He could easily give them the wrong information without realizing it and he worried that could either put the Resistance into a predicament due to his error or make them suspect that he was a plant sent to them by the First Order. His stomach felt like it was tied in knots.

Sensing his hesitation, Rey reached for his hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze.

“I’m not sure how accurate my information is,” he confessed. He hoped that would be enough to let them know that he was not a spy if he were wrong.

“If you tell us what you know, we have technical people that can judge your words and try to work out an explanation,” Leia told him. “We know you’re not an engineer or a technician, Finn. We don’t hold that against you. What you’ve given us so far has been far more intel than what we’ve gathered in two years.”

He took a deep breath while he searched for the right wording.

“When I was performing my duties on base, I was rotated to multiple locations,” he began. “I know that one of the weapons systems is located on the opposite from where the weapon is discharged.”

“On both sides of the planet?” Statura asked, almost in a gasp.

“The system actually runs through the planet core,” Finn elaborated. “As much as I know about what powers it… well, I understand that specially designed collectors use the power of the sun to attract and send dark energy to containment at the core of the planet. It’s held there until it’s ready to fire. I don’t know the specifics.”

“Impossible,” commented Ackbar.

Uncomfortable with this situation, Finn stopped talking and looked around the room to see if he still was needed.

“Apparently not,” retorted Statura. “If the engineering can be worked out… The First Order may have created something that the New Republic would have never even imagined.”

“Not like we would ever make something like that,” Finn heard General Organa mumble with disgust.

“Then it would have a near-unlimited source of energy,” Statura concluded. He paled at the thought.

Finn’s head was beginning to hurt a little from all the information, but he continued. “General Hux used to flaunt that it was the most powerful weapon ever built. It can reach halfway across the galaxy and in real-time.” He furrowed his brow, trying to remember what he heard. “I think he said something like it doesn’t reach across the galaxy but through it.”

Then, Han Solo stepped in. “Okay, so it’s big and we gotta destroy it.” At his non-factual statement, everyone in the room perked up, though some people scoffed at him. “So how do we blow this thing up?”

The sudden change of subject brought silence to the room.

Then Statura spoke up again.

“I could be wrong,” he began, “but for this amount of power to be held until release, there has to be some sort of containment field.” He looked to Finn for anything more to back him.

“I heard it involved the planet’s own magnetic field or something…” he supplied.

Statura nodded. “Yes, then there would be something more involved. An oscillating field of some kind.”

Finn shrugged. “I don’t know much about that,” he confessed and leaned towards the image and pointed, “but here is where the oscillation field control system is located.”

“So that means…”

Poe interjected, “We’d likely only get one shot at this. The First Order still thinks that we don’t know where this weapon is located. Once we strike, they’ll defend themselves with everything they got.”

“They must also have some sort of shield around this thing,” added Ackbar.

Finn nodded. “They do.”

An attendant rushed into the room and handed General Organa a report. Glancing at it, her expression widened, but Finn wasn’t sure if this was out of shock or fear. 

“Regardless,” she said, “if we’re going to strike, it had better be soon.” She waved the report in the air. “D’Qar is their next target.”

Panic spread into the room as some people rushed out to make preparations and to warn others. The beings that remained stayed put, waiting for Leia to continue. The ones that were not panicking looked hopeless, as if defeat was imminent. 

But Poe spoke up first. “If we can get their shields down, we’ll hit them with everything they got.”

“Right,” Han nodded. He looked to Finn and Rey. “So how do we do that, you two?”

This time, Rey spoke up. “Unless they’ve already nulled my clearance codes, I can do that.”

“And if they have…?” Her aunt raised an eyebrow.

Finn didn’t like the next part, even if he could tell that Rey wasn’t fond of the idea either.

“If it comes to it, the dark side is my ally.”

Leia closed her eyes in a wince over the thought. 

“But we need to be on the base to shut the shields down,” said Finn.

Han moved closer. “Kid, you tell me where to land and I’ll get you two there.”

Finn didn’t like this idea, and apparently, General Organa didn’t care for the idea either. She glared at her husband. “Han,” she sighed, _“how?”_

He grinned widely at her. “If I told you, you wouldn’t like it.”

Finn and Leia groaned at the same time.

* * *

A supplier arrived on base just as Leia called an evacuation.

The owner of the cargo ship, a small alien with orange-ish skin and wrinkles that suggested that she was far older than she looked, adjusted her spectacles and looked around. Glancing at all the activity of recruits trying to load transports with supplies and beings, she made a face of uncertainty.

“Maz.”

The alien glanced around and upwards at the face of General Organa.

“Leia, my dear. It seems I have come at a bad time.”

The general nodded solemnly and looked at the cargo ship. “The First Order has found our base,” she explained. “I’ve called an evacuation. I’m sorry that I could not get the message to you sooner.”

Maz shook her head. “What happens, happens.”

"A lot has happened in the last day,” Leia mentioned.

“Oh?”

“My niece has returned from the dead.”

Shocked, Maz adjusted her spectacles again and looked around. She had only met the girl once when she was a very small child. When she had gotten the news of the child’s death, she had sent her sympathies to Leia and her family. A shame to lose a child that young and one that was so loved. The pain it brought the girl’s family had only been heightened by the added weight of the person that had killed her. 

But Leia was not aware of all that Maz knew.

A girl – rather a young woman – caught her eye as she helped load a crate onto the _Millennium Falcon._ Maz might not have been a Jedi, but she knew when someone was strong in the Force when she saw it.

The young man helping her also had something special about him. Two special young humans entwined by destiny.

So her hunch had been right all along…

Maz looked to Leia once more. “Before I leave,” she told her, “I have something that I need to give to you.”

* * *

“Rey, can I speak with you?”

Removing herself from her work with Finn and Chewbacca, Rey approached her aunt and saw that she wasn’t alone. An old alien woman with eyes that held both wisdom and a taste for mischief stood next to Leia on the tarmac.

“Rey,” began Leia, “this is Maz. She’s… an old friend.”

Searching her memories, Rey found nothing about this woman. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t remember.” She wasn’t quite sure why she was apologizing. In all likelihood, she might not have ever met this woman and Leia did not indicate that she had. But lately, Rey kept finding that whenever someone mentioned a memory that she could not recall, she would automatically apologize as if the situation were her fault.

The woman, Maz waved the apology off. “I wouldn’t think so,” she said. “We’ve only met once and you were a very small child then.”

“Oh.”

“I am glad to see that you are alive and well,” Maz grinned and adjusted her spectacles to get a better look at Rey. “After that night, your family…” She glanced at Leia. “Well… I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Awkwardly, Rey tried to take her leave and get back to work. She didn’t know how to behave in a situation like this and it was starting to make her uncomfortable. “Well, it was nice meeting-"

“That’s not why we wanted to talk with you, Rey,” Leia stopped her. Without a word, she and Maz exchanged a glance. “There’s something that we think you should have,” said Leia.

“Something of your father’s… your grandfather’s,” Maz added.

They led her into Maz’s cargo ship where they stopped in the living quarters and Maz left them for a moment while she ran off to get whatever it was she thought Rey should have. When she returned, she held an old wooden crate by rope handles and placed it on the nearest table.

“I was asked to hold on to this,” Maz began as she lifted the lid of the crate, “until the right time. I think it might be now.”

Rey peered into the crate and gasped.

Sitting securely among a pile of soft straw, sat a lightsaber. It looked rather old from how some of the parts seemed worn, but it was in wonderful condition all the same.

“That was Luke’s first saber,” said Leia. She carefully reached in and took the saber in her hands, cradling it as if it were alive. Looking up at Maz with look of slight disbelief in her eyes, she asked, “But how did you find this?”

“A question for another time,” Maz answered. Then she turned to Rey. “I’m no Jedi, but I know the Force. And it calls to you.”

Rey frowned. “I’m of the darkness,” she replied. “The light and I are no longer allies. Besides, I’ve already gotten a weapon of my own. I like it.”

Maz smiled. “You might think that.”

Then, Leia held the lightsaber out. “You should have it, Rey. It was your father’s and his father’s. He’d want you to have it.”

She quickly realized that they weren’t going to drop the subject, so she reached for the weapon, intending to just hold on to it until she found a better purpose for it. Instead, the Force seemed to have a different idea in mind. The moment her fingers touched the hilt, she felt a strange tug at her body that seemed to toss her straight into a distorted sense of reality. She wasn’t in the present, but she wasn’t sure when or where she was either. It reminded her a bit of how the dreams she had back in the First Order felt. Disorienting, but not false or real. There was a sense of realness to it.

She was on that rainy world again. The one with the forest where her father’s school once stood. The place where her cousin murdered her friends and took her away from her family. It was dark, like the last time, but lightning did not illuminate the sky.

Out of the corner of her eye, movement caught her attention. Turning, she glimpsed a cloaked and hooded figure huddled on the wet ground, gripping for something hidden in the mud. 

Rey thought she heard a sob.

She approached the figure to get a closer look, realizing that if this was a memory or a vision, she was not actually a part of it. The figure would not see her or hear her if she tried to say anything.

But once she got close, she regretted her choice. If this was a recollection of the past, it was a very private one and not a memory of her own.

The hooded figure was obviously a man. She could see the outline of a beard from under the hood. His clothes were soaked through and caked with mud while the current rainfall gently hit the man and bounced off of his clothes, streaming in narrow ribbons to the ground beneath him.

He cradled whatever he found in the mud close to him, up against his chest where his heart was located. The man began to cry.

In his hands, Rey glimpsed the metal and dirty hilt of a very small lightsaber. One that a child would likely have learned with.

Her heart tugged at her and she resurfaced to reality with a gasp.

“That lightsaber,” she pointed, “it does not belong to me.”

She stood up and frantically made a run for the ramp of the cargo ship, leaving her aunt and Maz staring hopelessly behind her.

Rey’s sudden outburst and fleeing brought alarm to Maz and Leia, but they decided not to run after her. Instead, they waited for a few minutes before reemerging out to the tarmac. They noticed that Rey had not returned to help load up the _Millennium Falcon._ Leia pursed her lips in worry.

“I’m sure she’s fine, Leia,” said Maz.

“She saw something when she touched this.” She waved the lightsaber hilt in her hand.

Maz raised her hand up to take the lightsaber back from Leia. She frowned at it. When she arrived and saw the girl, she thought that the Force was giving her a sign over what to do with this. After all this time in her care, Maz really thought that Rey was the person that the lightsaber needed to go to. It was passed down in her family after all.

Maybe she would just need time to come around to it.

“Finn, be careful with those detonators!”

“Oh, so _now_ you tell me!”

She glanced over at the _Millennium Falcon,_ to the young man that had been helping Rey earlier. Leia had mentioned him as being the stormtrooper that had defected from the First Order along with her niece, providing the Resistance the best source of intel they had even been able to gather. He might even be her boyfriend, but Leia had not been sure. They were sharing quarters, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Sometimes people just needed to be near another without any romantic implications.

Watching him as he worked, she noticed a quiet but steadfast demeanor about him, but his eyes always seemed to be glancing around the base and towards the sky, as if worried that the First Order was going to fire their weapon at D’Qar at any movement. He was obviously frightened, but he had a reason to be there even if he would not have chosen this for himself.

A conflict of the heart.

But there was something else about him that she hadn’t seen while Rey had been with him. A flutter in the Force. Slight, but still there, waiting to be kindled to burn into a strong flame.

Perhaps Rey hadn’t been the person she was seeking after all.

* * *

Finally finished with loading the _Falcon_ of all the supplies on the checklist, Finn patted his hands together and admired the emptiness of the tarmac around him. Then he glanced around and frowned, seeing that Rey had still not returned from speaking with her aunt.

But someone was watching him.

It made him uncomfortable to see a very short and ancient alien woman sitting on a crate of cargo and staring straight at him. She was so still that Finn actually wondered for a moment if she had fallen asleep with her eyes open. But when she adjusted the goggles tightly pressed up to her eyes, he knew that wasn’t the case.

Then she hopped of the crate and strode over to him quickly, taking him completely off guard. She held her arm out, holding something long and cylinder in her hand.

“Young man,” she said, “I think this is for you.”

He took the metal cylinder from her and inspected it. He wasn’t sure what it was.

“It’s a weapon,” Maz explained, “for there may come a time when you need it the most.”

Finn startled as he looked up at her. “Are you-?”

But before he could ask his question, the woman adjusted her goggles again and stared intently at her. Finn felt his brain tell him to back away in discomfort.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

She walked closer to him and this time Finn did start to back away. “When you’ve lived as long as I have,” she began, “you begin to see the same eyes in different people. When I look at yours, I see the eyes of a man that isn’t sure if he wants to run or if he wants to fight.”

He paused, squinting at her. “Huh?”

Maz grinned and walked away without another word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to split another chapter into two, since the Thanksgiving holiday was cutting into my normal time for edits and this chapter was originally incredibly long.


	5. Chapter 5

For Finn, the last couple of days of travel had been the most stressful experiences of his life. 

Escaping the First Order on that transport with Rey and Poe had been a heart-clenching experience. Flying off of Jakku in a stolen freighter with TIEs on their tail had been nerve-wracking, but this… This was something a lot different and he wasn’t sure if he could find the words to describe it.

“Are you _serious?”_ he yelled at Solo from his seat behind the copilot’s. Even Rey, who had come up with her own hair-brained schemes involving flying, was gaping and wide-eyed.

But Han and Chewbacca were busy at the controls and paid them no mind as they flew through the shields of Starkiller at lightspeed.

But they were moving too fast, even as they began to slow at an accelerated rate. Had he not been terrified, Finn would have marveled at the skills of these two. The problem was, directly in his line of sight was a dense forest and they were heading right for it.

“I _am_ pulling up,” Han growled at Chewbacca as he fought with the controls.

The _Millennium Falcon_ plowed right through the tightly-knit group of trees as Han and Chewie gripped tightly on the controls to try to move away from the brush. Then, once they were able to maneuver the freighter upward, they shot straight up into the air.

“They’ll see us!” Han shouted as he tried to right the _Falcon_ again.

Finn gripped his chair tightly. He knew the First Order had this place filled with sensors. He could only hope that they were looking upwards, towards space instead of localizing on their base. A part of him still couldn't believe that he and Rey had volunteered to go back without much thought, but at the time in Operations, Finn had a sinking feeling that if they did nothing, then they would never be able to live without fear of the First Order. As long as Starkiller Base still stood, there would always be a looming threat of instant annihilation over their heads. Something told him that Rey had thought the same thing and that she felt guilt for her failure to bring it up right away. He wondered what would have happened if the Resistance had been able to warn the New Republic about the super weapon.

The freighter drifted down as Han tried to level them. They almost succeeded, but instead, they barreled back into the trees.

“I feel sick,” groaned Rey as the _Falcon_ shook. 

“You did almost the same thing on Jakku,” Finn pointed out.

She groaned again. “Yeah, well, it’s different when you’re the one doing the flying.”

As they flew through the forest and slowed down, a stream of trees in their path splintered against the freighter. Then, they made contact with the ground, soft with snow, and slid into a slowing halt. Half-buried in the snow, they found that the forest around them was quiet and sighed with relief.

Han, Finn, and Chewbacca stood up to exit outside but Rey hung back.

“I need a moment.” She clenched her hand at her stomach. “Just a moment.”

Seeing her like this, Han cringed. “Sorry, kiddo.”

They decided to check out the outside while they waited on Rey to get her bearings again. Besides the occasional falling snowflakes, the forest was quiet. Finn sighed in relief at their luck. If they had been traced, the First Order would surely have been on them by now.

“I think we’re safe here,” he told Han.

But Chewbacca growled at the sight of the _Falcon_ covered in snow, shaking his head.

“Oh yeah?” Han growled back. _“You_ try it.” Then he turned back around and scratched the back of his head. “That wasn’t supposed to happen,” he muttered. “We were too rough.”

Finn grew nervous. “But we can get out of here, right?” He glanced over at the freighter in the snow.

Han just waved him off. “We’re fine. Don’t worry.”

“Is this one of those ‘any landing is a good landing,’ moments?”

“I haven’t decided that yet.”

Finn decided that he didn't like this plan anymore.

Wobbling out of the _Falcon,_ Rey glanced at the sight of it covered in snow and frowned, but she said nothing more.

“Let’s go,” she said.

* * *

The snow and forest provided them with enough cover until they got closer to the base. The sentinel droids did not detect them once, thanks to Finn’s knowledge of the area and Rey’s ability to see a little ahead thanks to the Force.

“There’s a flood tunnel over there” Finn pointed. “We can get in that way.”

Han smiled. “Good job, kid.”

The moment he said that, Rey grabbed for the saber spear strapped to her back. “Someone’s coming,” she announced.

Han and Finn shifted nervously at first, but Chewbacca grabbing his bowcaster reminded them to ready their weapons. They waited. Listened.

Footsteps were their first-tip off. Finn guessed that they were being approached by a troupe of twenty stormtroopers by the sound. Too heavy of a sound for less than that, but too light for more.

“Oh, _kriff,”_ Rey gasped.

Before Finn could ask her what she sensed, a couple of white and black helmets emerged from over a snowy hill in front of them.

“Found them,” announced one of the stormtroopers.

The glowing red of Rey’s saber reflected off of their white armor as she ran in to strike them down. “Get to the tunnel,” she yelled back at them.

“Rey?” Finn went to run after her to help.

But she stopped him. “Just go. Go!”

Then, he saw another lightsaber joining the fray before he saw its wielder. He knew who owned that lightsaber just by looking at the crossguard and unstable plasma blade. Even at a distance, the blade was recognizable, unmistakable. This was why Rey wanted him to run.

He wanted to help her. Rey should not have to face Kylo Ren on her own, but his instinct told him that she was right. Even if he did go to help her, he wasn’t trained the way she was and he had seen Kylo stop a blaster bolt in its place on Jakku. Likely, Finn would just get in her way and one of them needed to make it out to complete the mission.

So he trusted Rey and ran.

“This way,” he told Han and Chewbacca as the two of them shot at the incoming stormtroopers. They followed after him.

Finn’s thought’s drifted towards the strange alien woman when she gave him that metal tube. He kept it with him, after all, she told him it was a weapon. He wondered…

Reaching towards his belt, where he handily attached the weapon, he removed it.

Just as he did this, another group of stormtroopers blocked their way.

“Traitor!” one of them shouted and approached.

Han and Chewbacca broke off and stood their ground to the side of the path. They began to shoot the troops off.

Finn looked at the tube in his hand and pushed his finger against something that looked to be a switch.

Ignition. Then, a sound that reminded him of…

This _was_ a lightsaber. Nothing like Rey’s and the color was blue, not red, but when he held it in his hands, Finn felt that he had an edge to himself finally that could make a difference in battle.

He almost wanted to turn back and make a run for it to try to help Rey, but the stormtrooper that had engaged him with a baton was in the way. The ‘trooper was big and agile as he swung at Finn. There was something familiar about his stance…

“Wait,” Finn paused in thought as he held up the lightsaber to block the incoming attack of the baton. _“Nines?”_

“You do not get to call me that,” Nines spat out. _“Traitor,”_ he said again.

While not trained in lightsaber combat, Finn knew batons like the one his former classmate was using and tried to use his weapon the way he was taught during his years of training. He’d admit that it wasn’t quite the right way to use the weapon and he really had to adjust himself to the push-back and weight of the lightsaber, but he did what he could.

What hurt him even more was that no matter what he tried to say, Nines would not back down. Finn did whatever he could to try to convince him to put the weapon down, to join him; anything to keep himself from being forced to hurt someone he had once thought of as the closest thing he had to a friend.

But Nines would not stop.

The next moments felt like a blur to him and his memory went foggy over what happened. One moment, he had locked weapons with Nines, the next, he had been knocked to the ground. Nines raised his weapon to make a killing strike and out of instinct, Finn managed to raise the lightsaber to point directly upward. It pierced the white stormtrooper armor, right through the side of Nine’s abdomen and angling towards his shoulder.

With a strangled sound, Nines stumbled backwards, looking at the beam of light that had ran through his body and fell to his knees before his body tilted to the side while falling.

His helmet rolled off.

The unsettling sight of the unseeing open blue eyes and matted red hair of his comrade made Finn nearly gag as he rolled back up to his feet. He had just killed someone. Someone that he knew. Someone that he once almost considered a friend. If he could run away from all this, from the death and the squeezing in his heart, he would. His mind was certainly already ahead of him.

Another stormtrooper approached him from behind. So occupied with the body of his former sqaudmate, Finn only saw the trooper approach him until it was almost too late…

He quickly turned around to try to deflect the attack, but to his surprise and relief, the stormtrooper went flying backwards with the force of a blaster bolt making contact.

“You okay, Big Deal?”

Finn brushed some snow off of his pants. “Yeah… I’m fine.”

Han glanced at Nines’ body on the ground and looked back at Finn with a frown, but he didn’t say anything more. Then, his eyes widened at the lightsaber in Finn’s hand.

“Where did you get that?”

With a shake of his head, Finn told him, “Not sure who. An old woman on D’Qar. Alien.”

Finn glanced back one more time, hoping to see Rey appear behind a snow bank to rejoin them. He sighed when he found no sign of her. “This way,” he said.

He led them up another snow bank until Finn could see the tubal opening to the tunnel he was looking for.

“There it is,” he said, then frowned. “Han, I don’t know how to take down the shields. Rey had the codes. I was just a green stormtrooper.”

Chewbacca groaned as Han walked around in a tight, slow circle. “People are counting on us!” he said with frustration. “The _galaxy_ is counting on us!”

Not knowing what to do bothered Finn. Seeing Han act like this bothered him. He suddenly switched gears, trying to act like the confident one. “We’ll figure it out,” he tried to coax. Finn glanced at the lightsaber. “We got here, didn’t we?”

“Yeah? How?”

“We’ll use the Force!” He grinned. 

Running his hand down his face, Han turned to Finn. “Look kid, I don’t got time to explain it to you, but _that’s not how the Force works!”_

Chewbacca growled and Han looked more frustrated than ever.

“Oh really? _You’re cold?”_ He gripped his jacket tighter, as if it would keep the chill out better.

* * *

A sudden jolt to her mind woke Rey to a too-familiar room and an all-too familiar situation. Her heart began to race in her panic and she struggled against the metal restraints that kept her upright.

She knew she wasn’t alone, but that was what made everything about this dark cell worse. He didn’t move for the longest time and Rey took a moment to look at her surroundings. No, this wasn’t the cell she often was sent to on the _Supremacy,_ but it was eerily similar. The holding apparatus was the same and there were no windows, just a single door that led to a corridor that was probably heavily guarded by stormtroopers. She thought back to Poe, who had been in this situation just a few days before, but unlike Poe, Rey would not be as lucky. She doubted that Finn knew where she was and even if he did, he wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance on Mustafar to break her out. Kylo would see to that.

No, if she wanted to get out, Rey had to do this herself.

“Hello, cousin,” she spat.

Kylo stood from where he perched on the ground. “You remember,” he said gently. “I knew you would eventually.” His voice was surprising gentle for all the anger that swelled in him. Rey was actually surprised that he had kept himself under enough control to not already hurt her.

He waved his hands in her direction. A couple of clicks signaled the fall of the restraints on her hands and she rubbed the area where the metal had sat too tightly around her wrists. She frowned. Kylo was being too hospitable already; he was up to something.

“Where are the others?” she asked. “The ones that fought with me?” She had no idea if he knew that his father was on base yet and she’d rather keep that up her sleeve if she could.

“You mean the traitor?” he asked. His words were slow.

She said nothing.

“You will be relieved to hear that I have no idea.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong about that. Rey stared at him and continued to say nothing. One wrong move, and she knew she would set off his temper.

“Why did you do it, Sira?” he finally asked.

“That is not my name,” she hissed.

He stopped. “Why did you betray us?”

So maybe she wasn’t doing a good job at hiding her feeling for her former master.

“That’s what happens,” she began, bluntly, “when you find out that your cousin kidnapped you and stood by while you were tortured.”

She waited for pain. For a slash of a lightsaber. For a slap on the face. Nothing came. 

Kylo was no longer looking her way.

“Look at me with your eyes when I speak to you,” she shouted.

Rey did not expect for Kylo to actually do what she said. He reached up and unlatched the mask covering his face, removing it and slamming it to a nearby table. “Happy?” he asked with a non-distorted voice. It was shocking to hear again after all these years. She had not seen her cousin’s face in all her time as his apprentice. It had matured a little since the last time she could recall seeing it in her memories. Then, he was a young man. Now, he probably was almost thirty, if she could recall correctly.

“I can make this easy,” he told her. “Just tell me about the droid and the Resistance.” He paused. “I can even have the traitor saved for you. Don’t make me do this, Rey.” The last part was said in a whisper, full of desperation and perhaps even regret. But Rey would not fall for it. Even if that was what he was feeling, she could never find it in her heart to forgive her cousin for everything he had done. She kept reminding herself why she came to Starkiller and why she hated him so much, perhaps even more than she hated Snoke.

So she decided to play a game. “The droid is a BB unit,” she said smartly. “With a selenium drive and a thermal hyperscan vindicator and a-"

“-Internal self-correcting gyroscope propulsion system,” Kylo interrupted her. “Yes, I know. I’m not looking to acquire one.” He slammed his hand against the holding apparatus, causing it to shake slightly. “Tell me about the map!” he yelled.

Now _that_ was the Kylo she knew. She looked away from him, disgusted.

“I know you’ve seen the map!” he accused. “I need it.”

“You want to kill my father.”

“I have to end the Jedi,” he sighed. “It’s my destiny. If there was another way-"

“There is.” She glared at him. “Forget about your _destiny._ Snoke was probably lying to you.”

“Rey-"

She slammed herself against the restraints. “I will _not_ let you kill my father!” she screamed. “I will kill you before I let you do that.”

He went quiet, staring at her carefully. Then he circled around her in a predatory manner. “Fine,” he breathed. “You know I can just take what I want.” He stood in front of her again, taking over her entire vision. “I wanted to avoid this,” he told her. “The Supreme Leader won’t show you mercy now.” He waited to see if she would give in.

But Rey would not relent. She remained motionless as his arm reached out towards her, brushing her face gently one more time before he attempted to break into her mind.

There was hesitation there. But why?

Then he gave himself a push to invade her, trying to dodge her attempt to push him out. He spoke softly, as he investigated.

“Oh,” he laughed. “Look at that. You’re in _love_ with the traitor. How sweet. Have you told him yet?”

“Get out of my mind,” Rey growled.

“I can feel your longing for him,” Kylo mocked. “How you always want to stay close to him. How warm you feel when you sleep beside him.” Then he switched his target. “And your sadness. How even the traitor doesn’t quite fill the hole in your heart. How you feel that something is always missing from you.

Even though she was crying now, Rey still grit her teeth together in an attempt to push him out. “And whose fault is that?”

“And Han Solo and Leia Organa,” Kylo paused when he got to them. “The family you lost and still can’t quite remember no matter how hard you try. They love you unconditionally and you don’t think you deserve that.”

He waited to see her anger swell before he continued. “And your father. Missing. Maybe even dead. You are so afraid to find him. Afraid to find out what he would think of what you have become.” Then he leaned closer and whispered, “I’ll give you a hint. He’ll be so disappointed in you.”

And that made all the anger in her snap. “Get out of my head!”

“Give me the map!”

She created a barrier in her mind, something she had been taught to do but had never been able to do to stop Snoke from hurting her. It stopped Kylo from breaking in further, and Rey found herself probing into his mind.

First, she felt the grasping emotion of regret fill her mind. She saw herself, dressed in her Knight garb, hunched over a tree and admiring it. Regret turned to anger, frustration. Why would she not mind her orders and fulfill her duty? Why did she always try to turn against the Supreme Leader’s will?

It was a quick thought, one that had been allowed to stray. In front of her vision, she saw the gloved hand of someone - not her - rise up in the direction of herself, then, with an ounce of frustration, a push in the Force.

She fell forward, hitting the tree and sliding into a sitting position unconscious. A cloud of reddish gold dust filled the air, falling around her…

“Seriously?” she shouted. That had been the day she had gone out on a mission with Kylo and returned to the First Order sick with a fever and skin blotched with a rash. “What are you? A child?”

She went into his mind further.

His mind felt cold and cramped. Full of half-formed schemes and the promise of destiny. She could hear the whispers of Snoke speak to him of his greatness and power. The greatness of the bloodline of…

“You,” she spoke out loud. _“You’re_ afraid that you will never be as strong as Darth Vader!”

Kylo broke away suddenly. His eyes widened as he stared at her. “You-you-"

“I learned from the _best.”_ Rey grinned.

Stumbling back, Kylo turned to leave and with a flick of his wrists, reinstated the restraints on Rey’s wrists. Then, he placed his mask again over his head and left the room.

Finally left alone, Rey relaxed against the restraints and sighed deeply. She looked around the room for anything of use, even her saber spear, which was nowhere to be found. Kylo must have removed it from her after he knocked her out in the snow.

Sighing again, she turned her thoughts to Finn and hoped that he had made it in. The Resistance was counting on them and now she was unable to be of help. She focused her mind to the Force, searching for him.

Relief filled her when she felt his presence. Now all she needed to do was figure out how to get out of here.

* * *

“Okay, Solo, I’ve got an idea.”

“Don’t call me that!”

Finn led the way through the corridor. Already, they had gotten quite deep into the First Order base thanks to his knowledge of the area. Sanitation duty, he mused, had given him far more than just the discipline that all the cadets were expected to gain during their less glamorous duties. Rey’s sudden separation from the group made everything so much more complicated and Finn had half a mind to give up on this mission if he noticed it was going south fast and leave to find her. 

But it hadn’t gone bad just yet. Now the only thing they needed to do was find some sort of officer and technician with clearance codes to the shields of the base…

Then they spotted movement and hid against a nearby wall which blocked them from view. Finn peered out and was surprised to see the reflective chrome armor of Captain Phasma.

He frowned for a moment while he thought if Phasma was a target he wanted to take chances with. Maybe a few months ago he might have thought her as someone who could simply be overpowered. Now, he knew far better.

But she might be the only chance they got…

“Here comes our key,” he whispered to Han and Chewbacca.

Han glanced at her, then looked back at Finn, puzzled. “You know this one?”

“Yeah, we’ve met.” Fumbling around with his blaster, Finn frowned. “We need her alive. Is there a stun setting on this model? I’m not familiar with it.”

Han grinned. “Oh, you don’t need to worry about that.”

That made Finn nervous. “Listen to me, do not underestimate her.”

Chewbacca nodded.

Phasma was obviously not on guard judging by the way she was walking. Either she had not heard of the possible intruders or she didn’t actually care. Preoccupied with other thoughts, she was unaware of her surroundings as a big furry arm wrapped around her until it had pulled her to the side, into a narrow corridor where Han and Finn were waiting. As she struggled out of the Wookie’s grasp, Finn pointed his blaster at her.

“So you’ve returned,” she said. “And where’s your traitor girlfriend?”

Finn held up his blaster. “Still wanna inspect it?”

“FN-2187-"

“That’s not my name,” he stopped her. “My name’s Finn. A real name for a real person. And I’m in charge now, Phasma. I’m in charge.”

Yeah… he was enjoying this a little too much.

Han cleared his throat. “We’re just visiting and Finn’s been a great tour guide but we haven’t seen the planetary shield control room yet and my friend and I here have a real interest in seeing that.” He grinned pleasantly.

Chewbacca moaned and tightened his grip.

“You can’t actually think this is going to work,” Phasma sighed. “Even a Wookie can’t crush this armor.” She wheezed as Chewbacca squeezed harder.

“I could also just, you know, shoot you,” Finn added. “I’m very well-trained. In fact, I learned from the best.” He looked at her pointedly.

“What are you even up to? Are you Resistance now? Independents?”

Finn knew that she was trying to stall and Han seemed to know this too. Neither of them answered her. 

“Now, now,” said Han. “You’re our tour guide. Let’s go.”

By keeping to the smaller, unused passage ways, they were able to avoid the technicians and troopers wandering the main corridors. Phasma, for all the credit that they could give her, did not try to struggle further or cause them any other trouble. He thought back to what Rey and Cardinal had said about her and wondered if she was going to comply to keep herself alive.

But a part of him still couldn’t quite believe it would be that easy. Why on earth would Phasma betray the First Order? That would mean she would have to heavily cover her tracks later or flee and he didn’t think Snoke or Hux would let her off the hook.

Actually, she probably thought that they would be caught and killed soon enough and was just playing along.

When they made it into the control room, Finn made a quick glance around it. He had never actually been in this room before and he was a little shocked to see how there was no security present and that the room was incredibly small. Finn supposed that as long as everything was working fine, there was no need to have a technician on duty and that a droid might be assigned to come in and do check ins on rounds.

He wondered how long it would take before a technician would be dispatched once they lowered the shields and how long Poe and his pilots would have to blow this place up.

Phasma sat in front of one of the consoles and with a sigh, she resigned herself to enter in the codes. But she was being slow to do it and hesitated to press the key to submit the code and command.

He pressed the muzzle of his blaster against her helmet. “Do it.”

Chewbacca drew near again, ready to provide help if it was needed.

With a few strikes of the key, the console came to life. Then a readout popped up on the screen, large enough for everyone to see:

SHIELDS DISABLE INITIATED

Leaning towards Han, Finn voiced his concern, “Solo, if this works, we won’t have a lot of time to find Rey.”

“Don’t worry, kid,” Han smiled. “I have no intention to leave this base without my niece.”

Then Phasma sat back and said cooly, “I cannot do anymore. It requires two security codes to fully shut the system down.”

This time, Han was the one to hold his rifle up to her helmet. “I’ve been in the business of dealing with liars my entire life,” he growled. “And I know when someone is telling the truth and when they’re not.”

Phasma went right back to work with the console. A second message appeared:

SHIELDS DISABLED

“You can’t be so stupid as to think that this will be easy,” she spat. “My troops will storm this block and kill you all. Whatever you’re planning, it won’t work.”

Yet she had just proven that she would rather stay alive than to honor her contract with the First Order. This base was the biggest asset that they had at the moment, and years of time and millions of credits and resources had gone in to build it. Cardinal would have let Finn shoot him instead of giving up like this. Phasma almost just handed them a victory.

“I disagree,” replied Finn. He decided to make one last jab at the First Order. “I was told it was impossible to escape, yet here I am. I was told that training prevented anyone from betraying the Order, yet here I am.”

“You had help,” she pointed out.

“Rey didn’t tell me what to think,” he told her. “And here you are.” He looked at Han. “What should we do with her?” Part of him thought that their only option was to kill her and he would if he had to, but he wondered if Han had another idea up his sleeve.

“Is there a garbage chute? Trash compactor?” He smiled widely. When Finn gave him a puzzled look, he added, “I’ve had first-hand experience with those. Very effective and hard to escape from.”

Finn matched his grin. “Yeah, there is.”


	6. Chapter 6

To her luck, a stormtrooper guard had been sent in to make sure that she was hydrated and wasn’t starting trouble. She waited patiently for an opportune moment as he prepared an IV to give to her. Kylo obviously didn’t think that she could be trusted long enough to have full use of her hands. 

As much as she hated herself for what she was about to do, Rey knew that she had to if she wanted to get out here. For another moment, she would have to be Sira Ren again.

She waited a few more moments to make sure that the stormtrooper was fully focused on his work. It would make it a lot easier for this to work if she caught him off guard.

“You,” she said to get his attention. Then she focused with the Force, changing her voice into a tone that was commanding and persuasive. _“You will remove these restraints. And you will leave this cell, with the door open, and retire to your living quarters. You will speak of this encounter to no one.”_

Straightening his back from where he had hunched over a tray, the stormtrooper left the syringe and held his blaster close. He approached her and Rey almost panicked thinking that her trick did not work.

But then he spoke again, as if his thoughts were distant. “I will remove these restraints. I will leave this cell, with the door open, and retire to my living quarters. I will speak of this encounter to no one.”

Her shackles unlatched and then the guard turned to exit the cell.

But then she remembered that she was weaponless and while the Force would suffice, using it could be tricky and tiring at times. Rey would rather have a blaster at her side than nothing at all. 

_“And you will drop your weapon,”_ she added hastily.

“And I will drop my weapon,” the guard repeated as he unstrapped his blaster from his shoulder and dropped it to the ground with a clank before he departed in silence.

She waited for a few more moments to make sure that Kylo wasn’t going to charge in after her before she went to pick up the blaster rifle and leave the cell.

And now to find Finn, Han and Chewbacca…

Focusing her mind into the Force, she searched for them. While she wasn’t sure if she could tell Han and Chewbacca apart from the other lifeforms on the base yet, she could certainly find Finn.

An alert sounded, breaking her out of her focus. She cursed as she ran back to the entrance of the cell as a group of stormtroopers ran past her. At first, Rey thought that they had already caught her, but seeing them pay the open cell door no mind, she realized something else was going on.

Had they managed to get the shields down without her? She didn’t doubt Finn and certainly not her uncle with his… unconventional techniques, but her departure from them no doubt had put them in a tricky spot. They would have had to find a way to get codes another way.

Which meant that they had probably taken someone hostage to do so… and they might be needing her help now.

But while the stormtroopers and officers were distracted with the sudden alarm to signal intruders, their patterns were no longer predictable and Rey could not concentrate on the Force to find Finn with all of this chaos around. This meant that she would have to search for them on foot. The other problem was that without the predictability of the stormtroopers, Rey would have to be very careful moving around the corridors.

If only there was a way for her to move around unseen or if there wasn’t a giant gap in the floor where the weapon was built into the planet.

Wait a minute…

She realized that she knew the interior of the base well enough to understand the inner workings, and while she had never been a scavenger on Jakku, going to extremes to explore the inners of dead Star Destroyers, she knew that she could use the interior shafts to move about freely and undetected, so she waited for another group to pass her and ran for the edge.

She hated not having some sort of rope as an added security for herself, but having one would bring attention and searching for one would take up too much precious time. No, she would have to scale the wall using her instinct and strength. 

It wasn’t too hard to find what she was looking for. Star Destroyers had similar interior structures and finding a panel that would allow her to slip into the wall and move among the wires and panels would not prove to be a problem. She had inspected the _Finalizer_ a few times, both out of curiosity and when the mechanics were at loss to find a problem.

So she hid herself in the safest place she could be at the moment and moved swiftly through the darkness, to the other side of the base. The rifle was a bit burdensome, but nothing that she couldn’t handle.

Then at last, she pulled herself up the ledge and back up to the floor of the base, and gasped when she almost ran right into a group. She held up the rifle, startled, then recognized who they were.

“Finn,” she practically launched herself into his waiting arms. 

If it had been up to her, she would have been happy to stay like that with Finn. It felt as if she couldn’t hold on to him tight enough. And she could tell that he was thinking the same thing.

They broke apart, separated, and looked into each other’s eyes with amazement.

“Did he hurt you?” Finn asked.

She stayed quiet, not knowing how to answer that. “I’m fine,” she told him. “Lost my spear, but I’m fine.”

Finn didn’t look like he believed her, but he dropped the subject. Maybe later, when they weren’t in such a dire situation, she would tell him about everything that had happened.

“Did you get the shields down?”

He smiled softly. She matched it.

“I knew you could.”

And when she looked to the corner of her vision, she could have sworn that her uncle was looking on at the two of them with an approving smile on his face.

But they were on a hostile world and didn’t have time for touching reunions and hugs.

“We’ll have a party later,” Han told them, breaking them apart again. “I’ll bring the cake. But right now, let’s get outta here.”

* * *

After an incident of evading snowtroopers in a ski speeder and Rey disassembling a maintenance panel piece by piece, she and Finn reentered the interior complex of the base, where Han and Chewbacca were planning to regroup with them after setting detonators in random locations.

Rey was worried again and she didn’t want to tell Finn why just yet in case she was being paranoid. Kylo Ren was nearby, or at least she could sense it. She had no idea if he was still hunting her friends or if he had realized she escaped and was looking for all four of them now. In any case, she could just tell that he was angry and was just about ready to strike anyone down at this point.

Cautiously, they looked around their darkened surroundings for any signs of Han and Chewbacca, or on the chance that they saw a glimpse of white armor. 

They peered over railing, noting that a group of stormtroopers were marching in precision a few floors below them. Rey made a quick glance around them and found that there was oddly no direct way up to this spot except through where they came from and a corridor to their left. 

Then, they saw movement far in front of them, down at the walkway that connected one side of the gaping depths of the structure to another. Pausing at one point, Kylo looked around as if uncertain before continuing his path onward.

And Uncle Han appeared behind him, running up the walkway to face his son for the first time in years.

“Ben!” he yelled. It echoed across the gap.

Kylo turned and retraced his steps a few paces, stopping in the middle of the walkway on a rounded platform. “Han Solo.” It was hard for Rey to hear them from up here, but she tried her best. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time.”

“Take off that mask.” It wasn’t quite a command, but it was anything but gentle. “You don’t need it. Not with me.”

“What do you think you’ll see if I do?”

“The face of my son.”

Kylo said something else, but Rey could not hear him, but he complied to his father’s request and removed the mask.

She wondered what her uncle was feeling. He had not seen his son in five years and even Rey could make vague recollections of how different his face looked. He looked so much older now. A grown man that no longer showed the same awkwardness of his young adulthood.

“That’s what Snoke wants you to believe,” Han growled. She could hear that. “He’s using you for your power. Manipulating you for your abilities. And when he’s gotten what he’s wanted, he’ll destroy you.” It looked like he was about to take a step forward, but he stopped himself and stayed where he was. “Surely you know that.”

Kylo did not make a sound, from what Rey could hear.

If he was about to respond, it didn’t matter. Han held up his hand, waving a hand angrily at him. “Well, I suppose you deserve it after what you did to your cousin. Your mother and I know all about that. Once, we wished to have you home again. Now… well, I guess you’re right. My son is dead.”

Rey had not expected her uncle to say that. And if she could tell by her cousin’s expression from this distance, neither did he. Her training as a Knight of Ren had taught her to use a powerful expression of emotion like this to her advantage. She would have been expected to manipulate Han and play his weaknesses like a synth-viol. Here, if she had been in Kylo’s place, she would have been expected to feign begging for forgiveness, crying for her family to take her back and put her in a place where Snoke could use that to his advantage.

But Kylo was too proud to do that.

Disgusted, Han turned away and took a few steps back to the safety of the main interior structure.

There was something wet on Rey’s face. In her confusion and observation, she didn’t realize when she started crying.

Finn put his arm around her. “Rey,” he sighed into her neck as he leaned into her. 

She was about to turn to exit to the outside to meet with Han and Chewbacca again when she heard the sound of an igniting lightsaber echo throughout the structure. Gasping, she turned around to watch Kylo sprint towards Han, intending to run him through. 

No one seemed to hear the roar of the Wookie just a few levels above the walkway.

A blaster bolt hit Kylo’s side, knocking him backwards on the walkway. He fumbled to regain his balance and prevent himself from falling into the void below. He stopped his pursuit of his father, placing his hand against his side in shock and bringing his gloved hand back up to his face to inspect it.

A group of stormtroopers had returned to start shooting at Chewbacca and Han. They retreated down the corridor, in the direction that Rey knew to lead back outside. She guessed that they would have to meet up on the way.

Chewbacca had obviously hit the detonator because one after one, explosions rocked the interior. Walls and walkways collapsed into rubble, confusing the stormtroopers and Kylo Ren as he stumbled back to the safety of the flooring. He struggled to stand up and looked upwards as he did.

He and Rey met gazes.

Almost immediately, Kylo began his pursuit again. She would have tried to shoot his face off with her rifle had Finn not half-dragged her towards the exit.

* * *

“Come on,” Finn urged Rey through the forest, back to where they recalled where the _Millennium Falcon_ had landed. They had not caught up to Han and Chewbacca any time during their escape, but he could bet that that was where they were headed.

But then he slowed to a halt when he saw a dark figure up ahead.

“Stop.”

The three of them stared at one another, waiting for someone to make a move. Of course, it was Kylo, reaching for his lightsaber, prompting Rey to hold her hand out to try to remove it from him using the Force.

But Kylo was quick and he raised his hand, halting her in her place. Snarling at him, she tried to get a grip on herself and force him to back off. Making another gesture of his hand, Kylo sent his cousin flying, flinging her against a nearby tree. She slid to the ground in a daze and then closed her eyes as she slumped into the snow.

Finn felt his world minimize.

“Rey!” Ignoring his enemy behind him, Finn ran to her side, cradling her face in his hands as he tried to urge her to wake up.

The sound of Kylo ignited his lightsaber forced him away from her. Anger fueling him, Finn reached for the lightsaber clipped to his belt and activated it. But instead of attacking, Kylo paused, looking at the lightsaber curiously before recognition lit up in his eyes.

“That lightsaber,” he began, “it belongs to me.”

He wasn’t sure why Kylo was so convicted of this, but Finn paid him no mind. He gripped the lightsaber and dared the Knight of Ren to come closer. “Yeah? Well come get it.”

“I’ll kill you for it. For it and for her.” Kylo rushed forward.

Instinct overcame him and in his fear, Finn raised the lightsaber up to defend himself by using the plasma beam to deflect the oncoming attack. As the blades met, light shed off of them, illuminating the snow and burning nearby shrubs.

Kylo drew back lightly, regarding Finn now with seriousness. He tried to lunge at him again, at a different angle and with a slight adjustment of strength behind his swing but Finn blocked that too. And so, they began their dance of swing, block, swing, parry. But instead of tiring, Kylo seemed to be enjoying this.

But then Finn landed a hit in, surprisingly grazing the tip of the lightsaber against Kylo’s arm. Kylo startled slightly at the burn of the contact, but he did not falter. No, he backed off slightly and grinned, swinging his lightsaber around as if the challenge that Finn was giving him was fueling him.

Then he ran at Finn with all his strength, landing a blow at Finn’s shoulder using the plasma crossguards of his blade. Finn groaned in pain as he tried to push Kylo off, but the Knight let his blade sink deeper into his skin. 

But the prolonged pain caused Finn to drop the saber from his hand.

Finn expected that nothing would hold Kylo back from outright executing him now. He waited for the sight of red before everything ended.

That never came.

The illuminated glow of blue once again reflected in his sight on the snow and Kylo removed his blade. Exhausted, Finn slumped to the snow and blinked a couple of times before he looked to see what had caused Kylo’s distraction.

Looking everything like an angered beast, Rey held the lightsaber ignited in her hand and advanced forward. She snarled at Kylo, who simply gave her a sly grin.

They said nothing to each other as they gripped their weapons and charged head-on at the other.

When the lightsabers met, the light from them illuminated the entire forest around them.

* * *

_I’ll kill him,_ she chanted to herself. _I am going to kill him._

Like two predators fighting over a kill, Kylo and Rey pursued one another deeper and deeper into the forest. Kylo was bigger and stronger than she was, but Rey had a ferocity and a sense of her surroundings around her. The only thing that made her waver in her movements was the dull ache around her head from where she hit that tree and her unfamiliarity in using a lightsaber with both her hands firmly gripped on the hilt, close together. She had never liked to fight like this, preferring a staff or something that just required one hand over bulkier weapons. The metal ridges towards the bottom third of the hilt made her grip awkward.

It seemed that each time she pushed him back, Kylo would regain his confidence and footing and meet her again with full force. Earlier, when they fought on the base, Rey remembered her fear in facing her old master. He might have taught her to be strong in battle, but he still had far more experience than her and hesitated less to use the dark side. Likely, she realized, he hadn't taught her every trick he knew. Snoke certainly had not taught her how to manipulate the memory of others or how to break into their minds the way he obviously had with Kylo. Or maybe Kylo figured that out on his own. Either way, her being able to break her way into his own mind had been a stroke of luck and possible because he had already opened his mind to receive hers, making him vulnerable. This fight was going to be different, she predicted, because he was already worn down from his earlier encounters with her and the fact that he was wounded on his side and bleeding from a blaster bolt. Despite that, Rey would not allow herself to call victory so quickly. He was still dangerous like this. She wasn’t sure how long it would be until one of them began to give, and Rey would make sure that she would be the victor here. Perhaps, she thought to herself, she should make that wound in his side a little bigger.

Rumbling made them both pause for a moment as they watched a chunk of forest sink into the ground and then crumble away. Kylo looked a little shocked by this, but he started to fight again. 

So it was starting then, Rey thought to herself. The planet was collapsing, meaning that the Resistance had done what they had set out to do.

She had to end this quickly. Finn might still be alone out in the snow and be in need of help. She hoped that Han and Chewbacca had already found him.

“I could kill you right now,” said Kylo. “Rey, please.”

“You would have already done it,” she pointed out. “You’ve already had multiple opportunities.”

“The dark side is so strong in you,” he tried to coax. “You can be so much more than this.”

“Oh, and I suppose _you_ know exactly what’s best for me?” she snapped.

The look on his face told her that he thought _exactly_ that. Blood boiling, she realized that she either needed to end him right there, or find a way to get away from him long enough to get back to Finn.

She focused into the Force for a moment, hoping that it would guide her next actions. She could see the forest humming with life, desperate to survive as its floor began to drop and roots began to be stripped of their base. Like it knew it was dying, the world around her seemed to fear its own end, shuddering and crying out.

Now was her chance.

Leaping backwards, she made one last slashing motion at her former master, taking him by surprise as the tip of her blade cut along his face. He fell backward and slumped into the snow. Rey stood just a few feet away from Kylo, just in time to see the patch of land she had been standing on crumble away, leaving a gaping crevasse in its wake. 

Something urged her to leap back – there was still time – to go back and finish the job. The logical part of her mind looked at the gap in the earth, fighting that urge by telling it that if she leaped back, there was a good chance that by the time she turned back the gap would become too big for her to get back over. Giving into that urge could mean her end, all for the sake of revenge, so she ignored it and focused on her other urge, the one that made her want to drop everything and run back to Finn. She glanced back once more to make sure that Kylo had not gotten up again, but she found him lying face down in the snow, red dotting around him. Likely, she told herself, he would not be able to escape the destruction of the planet in that state. 

“Finn!” she cried as she basically flung herself to where he had leaned against a tree. She wrapped her arms around him, huddling up against his side. With his good arm, he mirrored her motion.

With her fingers, she investigated the burn marks against the leather of Poe’s old jacket, knowing she would find a cauterized wound there. She frowned.

“You can stand up still, right?” she urged him.

Tired and shaky, Finn groaned as he braced his legs and tightened his muscles into a stand. Rey used her weight to help him walk, but they were being slow. If they didn’t find the _Falcon_ soon…

And just as she thought that, a glow illuminated the forest again, but this was not from a lightsaber or the planetary core. Then it grew too bright and she shielded her eyes from the light.

After adjusting her vision, Rey realized that the lights were coming from the scanning beams of the _Millennium Falcon._

It landed again gently in front of them, lowering the ramp simultaneously as Chewbacca came running out and scooped Finn into his arms. He almost began to protest, but then he stopped and let the Wookie carry him inside while Rey ran behind them.

As she sat with Finn’s head in her lap as she cleaned the wound on his shoulder and tried a shoddy attempt at bandaging it, Uncle Han made the jump to lightspeed before Starkiller imploded into itself.

She whispered to Finn that he would be alright and apologized that she had nothing to give him to numb the pain. Lightsaber wounds were awful, with a burning sensation that lasted for days with even the most minor of injuries. There would be no bleeding to worry about, but there was muscle and nerves at risk. Infection, if left untreated. But she didn’t think the Resistance would leave their hero to lie in agony. If they did, well, Rey would just take him to one of the many hospital stations drifting in the galaxy. Actually, she was pretty certain that if that were the case, Han and Chewbacca would probably offer to take them.

He mumbled something to her, but she could not quite understand him. Exhausted, she leaned back against the wall of the bunk and drifted off and she ran her hand through Finn’s cropped hair.

* * *

Despite his assurance that the medbay workers were good at doing their jobs, Rey would not stop fretting over him. He might have actually enjoyed the attention, had they not been in the middle of an evacuation.

But then, her aunt had called her to a quick conference and Finn almost stood up himself to convince her to go. If the only way to get her to leave was for him to leave, well, he’d just have to do that. Exclaiming that he shouldn’t exert himself, Rey ran right out of the medbay and left him alone for a half-hour.

When she returned, there were tears in her eyes.

“Luke’s old droid woke up.” She smiled. “He had the other piece of the map to the first Jedi temple all along.”

Her relief and excitement radiated off of her. Finn could not help but to smile back.

Then she frowned. “Aunt Leia wants me and Uncle Han to go get him, but I told her no-"

“Rey, you need to go,” Finn told her. “He’s your father.” He paused for a moment. “Actually, I think this really is something you need to do alone. Have some time to yourself to be with him, though if Han's with you, I think you'll be alright.”

She sat in the chair next to him, clutching the metal sides of the chair in a death grip as she thought. Then with a resigned sigh, she said, “I think you’re right.”

Fumbling through her bag - already packed and ready to go, he noticed – she removed something metallic and held it out to him. The lightsaber.

He shook his head. “Keep it,” he told her.

“I don’t want it.” Then she stopped as she remembered something. “Wait, how did you get this?”

Making his best attempt at a shrug, Finn told her, “Some old lady gave it to me before we left for Starkiller. Told me that I might need it.” His eyes widened. “I guess she was right.”

“Maz,” breathed Rey. “This was my father’s lightsaber. My grandfather’s lightsaber. It’s not mine though,” she said. “I can tell it doesn’t want me. It wants you, Finn.”

Shocked and confused, Finn furrowed his brows. “Me? But I’m not a-"

“You’re Force-sensitive,” Rey told him. “I kinda always thought you were, but I could never quite tell for sure…” 

He got a little giddy, but he wasn’t sure if it was him or the pain meds the doctor had given him. “So I can like, lift things with my mind?” For some reason, he was really into that and he looked over to stare at the glass of water at his bedside, focusing intently, in hopes that he could make it at least shake in its place.

Rey shrugged with a laugh. “Maybe. Depends on your strength. Everyone has a different level of Force-sensitivity but some are stronger than others. You’re strong enough to use a lightsaber, but you might find that you struggle with the other stuff.”

She tried to give the lightsaber again to him, but Finn refused. “Rey, you don’t have your spear anymore. Keep it for now. I can use a blaster just fine. Actually, I’m more comfortable with them. When you get a new one, you can give it back to me.” He winked. “And this means you can’t just up and leave me forever.”

“I’m not-" she gaped. 

“Rey, I’m _joking.”_

They went quiet for a few moments before Rey piped up again. “What are we doing, Finn? Getting ourselves into a war? I thought we wanted something else.”

He sighed. “Looks like the Force has a different idea for us. I’ll be here, if you need me. If you decide you don’t want to stay, say the word and I’ll make arrangements for us to go somewhere else when you get back.”

“I’ll check in, when I get there,” she promised. “I’ll send a message every day.”

“And I’ll do the same. I’ll keep you updated on where we go. And if I’m healed before you come back, I’ll come to you.”

Leaning in, Rey kissed him on the forehead before pressing another tender kiss to his lips. When she pulled back, she looked as if she wanted to say something more but she faltered and decided against whatever it was. Finn waited patiently to see if she would change her mind.

“I’ll see you soon,” she promised again as she gripped his hand once more and reluctantly let go before leaving the medbay.

Finn watched her go, a bit sad to not be by her side in all of this, but he knew this was for the best. She needed to be with her family right now. His heart swelled with affection for her and already, he felt a slight pressure in his chest as if a void had been left there when she said goodbye. It was going to be a tough time without her, but the galaxy needed Luke Skywalker and Luke Skywalker needed her. 

He wondered how Rey would be changed the next time he saw her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now, this fic is done!
> 
> There will be another installment that I hope to start rolling out in February, after I do some major edits. It'll probably end up being the longest installment of this series.
> 
> Don't worry about the separation. Finn and Rey will be back together soon and Finn will have his fair share of Jedi moments in the future ;)

**Author's Note:**

> To be updated weekends.


End file.
